And Life Goes On
by steamfan
Summary: Life may go on, but when you live in Sunnydale it is never boring. Even over the summer. Part of the Dawn Winchester verse.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Life may go on, but when you live in Sunnydale it is never boring. Even over the summer.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from either show. If you recognize it, it ain't mine.

Warnings: Mangled timlines, mention of same sex couples and situations, (No smut ever, I promise) May/December romance, swearing and violence. This is a mostly cannon up to Shadow for Supernatural and Blood Ties for Buffy.

Hank Summers wanted the confrontation with his ex-wife over as soon as possible.

Which is why he was in Sunnydale at such an ungodly hour. A quick, private

conversation and a simple round of sign here and here and here and it would all be over.

He frowned when he pulled up in front of his ex-wife's house. In front of him was an old

car. It was in good condition, but it definitely wasn't a classic. Who would want to own

such an ugly thing, much less deal with the upkeep? In the driveway was Joyce's SUV.

He parked his red convertible beside it and taking his briefcase; walked to the door.

"Yes?" A man Hank had never seen before answered the door. He supposed this was the

man who owned that horrid old car. And he was English to boot. "Mr. Summers, what

on earth are you doing here?" Giles stared at Hank Summers in shock. He hadn't seen

Buffy's father in years, although technically he'd never met the man. That had been the

result of one of Buffy's nightmares coming to life. That entire experience had made him

rather wary of the man.

"I'm here to see Joyce. Is she here?" Hank said self-importantly. This was obviously

Joyce's boyfriend. It was also obvious she couldn't handle a real man if she was dating

this wimp. Giles silently stepped back from the front door. While it was daylight and

Hank Summers wasn't a vampire, that didn't mean the man did not have ill intent towards

the ladies of the house. If he harbored such ill intent the wards would deal with him. He

was only somewhat relived to see that the man was able to walk through the front door.

He still had to worry about what the man wanted.

Hank was surprised by what he found in the living room. There were young people

laying about all over the place, wrapped up in blankets and sleeping bags. Joyce herself

was wrapped up too and had, of all things, some kind of ugly handkerchief/turban

wrapped around her head. He'd known for years that the woman was turning into a

frump, but really! He didn't see Buffy with the other kids, but he knew two of them were

friends of hers. The rest he didn't know. It seemed that he had interrupted a slumber

party. Well, it was just one more reason Joyce was an unfit to be a parent. Buffy was

much to young to be having sleep overs with boys!

"Joyce." Hank walked up to the couch, ignoring the others in the room.

"Hank." Joyce acknowledged. What could he possibly want? Neither noticed the heads

shooting up all over the room, and the sleepy looks completely disappearing from

everyone's faces. Dean and Sam shot each other a quick look.

Dean: 'that him?'

Sam: 'yeah'

Dean stood up and moved silently to where he calculated a punch to the jaw would move

Hank. Sam was beside him a moment later. He knew what his brother was thinking.

This guy was such a jerk that there was no way he could not end up eating a knuckle

sandwich from someone and when he did, they would be waiting to deal with him.

Giles smirked at Dean and Sam behind Hank's head. Apparently they were solidly on the

side of the Summers ladies and were ready to take action at the slightest provocation

Hank should give. That was as it should be. He glanced around the room at the others.

Dawn was backing away from Hank, and trying to make herself inconspicuous. Xander

and Willow had also stood up and the expressions on their faces did not bode well for one

Hank Summers. He signaled to Tara for her to take Willow out of the room. When Tara

tugged on Willow's sleeve, Willow tried to plead silently with Giles. He frowned and

shook his head firmly. Although Willow had depleted herself of most of her store of

magical energy the night before, she still had enough to be dangerous to Hank if she lost

her temper. And the Winchester boys were not the only ones expecting trouble.

"The land finally sold. I need your signature." Hank handed Joyce a folder out of his

briefcase and a pen. Joyce sighed. The land; it was the last thing that was still in both of

their names. That was something she could deal with. Preferably before Buffy and John

got back from washing his truck. It had been covered with Hectalik gore and John hadn't

wanted it to ruin the paint job. Buffy had been the only one who still had enough energy

to help him and it seemed that there was some subtle and not so subtle matchmaking

going on from the kids reactions. She was signing her name on the last line when the

front door opened.

"Wasn't as bad as this Rawhead and Bloodybones the boys and I took care of about eight

years ago. I thought we'd never get the Impala clean." John said as he followed Buffy

into the house.

"I don't do cars. Me and driving are unmixy things. Giles says it's because I'm too busy

watching for vampires and other demons." Buffy said looking over her shoulder at John

as they walked into the living room. "You have to be careful with demon guts though,

cause they just cling. Vampires, they dust most of the time and that you can just wash

right off if you have the right stuff. I mean it can be hard to wash out of clothes and hair

but a good detergent or shampoo will get the dust right out. But demon guts are the

worst!"

"I knew it!" Hank burst out. He turned on Joyce, not noticing the effect his outburst had

on Buffy. She had spun around and upon seeing Hank and hearing his tirade against

Joyce taking Buffy out of the mental hospital where she so obviously still belonged; had a

panic attack. At this point several things happened at once. Buffy collapsed and John

caught her. Which in turn prevented him from breaking Hank's jaw. Giles grabbed Hank

by the arm, spinning him around. His right cross across Hank's jaw sent Hank spinning

off into Dean and Sam's arms. They wrestled Hank to the ground and as Dean held him

down, Sam gagged him with the T-shirt Xander handed him.

"Dad, take her upstairs." Dean said into the sudden silence. "Giles, look after Joyce."

He looked around to see who else was in the room. He knew Giles had sent someone out.

"Sam, Dawn's glowing."

"What?" Sam looked around and saw that Dean was right. Dawn was glowing. She was

outlined in a green glow and she was trembling in anger and fear. "Xander hold him

down." Sam quickly moved over to his little sister and let Xander take his place. "Dawn,

calm down. He can't hurt her. We all know the truth." He gave her a little shake.

"Dawn, we're not going to let him do that to her again." Dawn slowly moved her gaze up

to Sam's face. "That's it. Now you have to calm down."

"Yeah, Dawn Patrol." Dean drawled as he forced Hank's head up to where he could see

Dawn. "You don't want to ruin what we have planned for this jerk now do you?" He

flashed a smug grin at his sister, inviting her to get in on the payback.

"Plans?" She asked as the glow around her faded.

"Oh yeah." Sam confirmed. "For one thing, I think it's about time Spike got some really

fresh blood. He did help out with the Hectalik and he really wanted to go out and play in

the swarm instead of watching our backs. Hank should make a nice thank you. What do

you think?" Dawn gave her big brothers a shaky grin. Feed Hank to Spike. That would

be ironic, not that she really thought they would kill him. It would be nice to see Spike

torment Hank for a while though. He could come up with some really interesting ideas.

Too bad Anya had left town already.

John carried Buffy up the stairs and into the bathroom. There had to be, hah! He grabbed

the small paper bag he found under the sink. Back in Buffy's room, he sat on the bed and

held the bag over her mouth and nose as he gently rocked her. Murmuring in her ear

reassurances that she was safe and Hank couldn't hurt her again, he hoped that the boys

could still go through with their tentative plan of rubbing Hank's face in the supernatural

world. Slowly Buffy managed to calm down.

"I can't believe I did that." Buffy crushed the paper bag. What would John think of her

now? "I'm the slayer. I should have been able..."

"Stop." John put his hand over her mouth gently and glared. "Who the hell told you that

being the slayer meant you weren't human anymore? I've been fighting this war for over

twenty two years, and I spent the first eighteen of it with two kids in tow. I've had more

panic attacks than you could shake a stick at. And you're supposed to be immune just

because you're the slayer?" She looked up at him so unsure of herself that John wanted to

rip someone apart. "He hurt you badly and you couldn't fight back. There is nothing

worse than to see something with your own eyes and have everyone think you're crazy. If

it wasn't for Missouri," John just closed his eyes and shook his head as he pulled Buffy

under his chin.

"What does the state of Missouri have to do with anything?" Buffy asked in confusion.

John laughed. "Not the state, my friend Missouri Mosley. She's a psychic and she was

the one to tell me the truth. That I really had seen my wife pinned to the ceiling of

Sammy's nursery. That she really had been on fire and something evil had killed her.

And that my in-laws were sending child services after me to take my boys away from me.

I wasn't sure she was telling the truth, even though she had confirmed what I had seen

with my own eyes. I got ready just in case. Lucky for me I did. I knew who child

services sent out when they took kids away from their parents and they were at Mike's

door less than an hour later. I've been neck deep in the fight ever since. But seeing

something like that can still send me into a panic attack. You wouldn't believe how many

times I've had to deal with CPS over the years. And I still have a panic attack each and

every time. It's one of the main reasons I want to home school Dawn."

"Oh." Buffy said softly. She had never imagined John being scared like that. He'd been

fighting the supernatural for so much longer than she had and not like Giles either. Giles

was book guy. John was let's go kill it guy. "I don't want to go back down stairs." she

confessed.

"You shouldn't. You've been up all night and it was more stressful than usual. Add in the

jerk and a panic attack on top of it and what you need right now is rest. You have

reinforcements now. Let us do our jobs. One of which is to take care of the jerk

downstairs. Sleep now. You aren't alone and none of us will let anything bad happen."

He continued to rock her long after she had fallen asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Hank Summers wanted these lunatics to wake up so he could go to the bathroom. After

the girl had stopped glowing green (and that had to be a trick of the light), he'd been tied

up in a kitchen chair and set in a corner of the living room. Only Joyce had left the living

room to go upstairs. She had told the young man giving orders that she was perfectly fine

and was going upstairs to check on Buffy. Whoever that man with her upstairs was, he

should not have been left alone with Buffy. Maybe he was Joyce's boyfriend? No, he'd

been punched by jealous boyfriends before, (all part of being a real man) and the Brit was

definitely Joyce's boyfriend. Besides, Joyce was too much of a prude to date more than

one man at a time. The kid giving orders had called the man dad, so the kid must be

Buffy's boyfriend. He must be just as bad a parent as Joyce. He had been supporting

Buffy's delusions! Joyce had come back downstairs long enough to tell everyone that

Buffy was asleep before wishing them all a good night. Good night! It was seven in the

morning! And where was the kid's dad! It was now noon, he was surrounded by sleeping

bodies and his bladder was about to burst. He couldn't even ask for a bathroom because

he was still gagged!

The front door flew open with a bang and a smoking blanket covered figure darted in and

ran for the stairs. Hank had a good view of the results of the noise from where he was

sitting. All three of the young men were instantly awake, sitting up and pointing various

guns at the form under the blanket. The two older girls were slower to sit up but when

they did their hands were glowing. As the figure struggled out of the blanket, Buffy and

the kid's dad charged down the stairs carrying a sword and a crossbow. Good god, these

people really were lunatics! Hank thought. When a blond man emerged from the

blanket, all of the weapons were lowered.

"What are you doing here Spike?" Buffy asked.

"Whelp didn't come home this morning and he still wasn't there when I woke up." Spike

shrugged, not wanting to admit he'd been worried. "Besides, I was hoping to get some of

your mum's hot chocolate, slayer." He looked around checking to see that everyone was

still ok. "Who's that?" he asked the room at large.

"This?" Xander asked, getting up and slapping Hank in the shoulder. "Well this would

be a present for you Spike." He winked at the vampire where Hank couldn't see him.

Spike got the message. Whoever this bloke was, he had screwed up big time if the white

hats were playing this kind of game with him. He let the wanker see the predator in him

as he walked over and oh, so casually, examined him. Buffy turned around on the stairs

so Hank couldn't see she was about to break out into giggles. She didn't want to spoil

Spike's performance just because she knew he couldn't hurt the man.

"No bite marks, Spike." John said in a slightly raised voice. He was more than willing to

go along with the Xander's idea. "We don't want to have to explain why we let him get

eaten. We don't want the local demons nervous."

"Slayer!" Spike pouted. It was all John could do not to break up laughing. So that was

what Dawn had meant about Spike's pout.

"No bite marks, Spike." Buffy said as she headed up the stairs, careful not to allow Hank

to see her face. "You can still feed as long as you do it from cuts."

Spike turned back to Hank still pouting. "But I wanted to play with him." he said in his

best imitation of his sire in a snit.

"Don't be sad Spike." Xander moved to put an arm around Spike's shoulders. "I tell you

what. I'll cut him into a nice pretty pattern for you. He'll be nice and bloody. Heck, I bet

I can even manage to make it look like he'd just been thrown face first through a window.

How does that sound?" Spike noticed that from the way the wanker's fear scent spiked

when Xander had put his arm around Spike's shoulders, he was one of those overly

macho homophobic types. He could work with that if Xander would let him. And from

what Xander was already doing it wouldn't take much to let that stew in the blighter's

brain. Add in the demonic aspect and maybe he would get lucky enough to give the

wanker a heart attack. Spike leaned into Xander and let his face shift from human to

demon form. Hank pissed his pants. Inwardly Spike was delighted, it had been a long

time since he had been able to get that sort of reaction from a human. Dawn slipped into

the kitchen so Hank wouldn't see her shaking with laughter.

"Could I have some hot chocolate luv?" Spike asked, resting his head on Xander's

shoulder. He would bet that he was the only one who could tell Xander had stiffened up

when he did so. "He stinks too much right now."

"Sure Spike." Xander said going along with the vampire. "I'll even make sure it has

minimarshmallows." Xander turned towards the kitchen and they followed everyone else

out of the living room.

John walked the rest of the way down the stairs. Instead of heading for the kitchen after

the others, he untied Hank and keeping him covered with the crossbow, took him to the

bathroom. When Hank reached for the gag, John shook his head. Hank was shaken up

enough to not want to push and left it while he took care of his business. John made sure he cleaned up the mess he had made in the living room and then retied Hank to the chair. The point of the crossbow bolt never left his skin the entire time.

Once in the kitchen Spike let his demon face slip away and stood up away from Xander.

"What did he do?" He asked, jerking his thumb back at the living room. "Not like you

white hats to actually play fun games like that."

"He scared Buffy." Dawn growled, glowing slightly green once more.

"Yeah, but we're going to have a lot of fun teaching him exactly how he screwed up,

Dawn. Right?" Sam said as he wrapped his arms around her. She leaned backwards into

his embrace and stopped glowing.

Spike threw a questioning look at Xander. "Apparently when Buffy burned down her old

high school's gym before she came to Sunnydale, Hank threw her into a mental hospital

because she told him it was full of vampires. Joyce got her out. When John and Buffy

came in this morning they were talking about the difficulties in cleaning up after slaying.

Hank was here and heard them. He started throwing a fit and Buffy had a panic attack.

We tied him up. You know the rest."

"I take it you lot want to cram the truth about vampires and the like down his throat?"

"We don't want to kill him Spike. He wouldn't learn anything from that. But what he did

was wrong. He didn't even try to listen. If he had tried, Buffy could have shown him

vampires were real." Willow was ripping a flour sack towel to shreds. "Then after the

divorce he kept standing her up and he finally stopped even calling her. I'm pretty sure he

never paid Joyce child support. He ran off to Spain with his secretary!"

"Actually his company shipped him off to Spain because his boss was getting too many

sexual harassment complaints." Dean said. The Scoobies all looked at him. "What?

Like we're not going to check the creep out? He's Buffy's dad and Dawn has memories of

the jerk. I'm all for shoving the existence of what goes bump in the night so far down his

throat he's shitting it for the rest of his life."

Spike smiled. "I like the way you think!" He rubbed his hands together. "He's already

scared of Xander and me after that little song and dance in there. What else we gonna do

to the wanker? I want to bleed him a little."

"You just want the fresh blood." Xander sniped.

"That too, pet. I don't get fresh very often you know. Besides, how better to prove to him

what I am than for me to feed a little." Spike pointed out in what he thought was a

reasonable manner. He knew they wouldn't let him kill, but if he worked this right he

might be able to get some blood from the source.

"Can we bind him Giles?" Willow turned to the ex-Watcher. "Make him do something?

Like, like..." She stumbled to a halt so upset she couldn't articulate anything that would

be bad enough.

"Being nice to women?" Tara offered.

"Celibacy!" Sam and Dean chorused.

"Watcher training!" Dawn piped up. They all stared at her. "That takes everything away

from him and locks him away with the books, which he doesn't like and he's American

which they don't like and every day he'll be looking at stuff which is gross and we have to

fight."

"Not to mention that it adds to the ranks of the light, thus helping to redeem him and the

council is very strict with people sent to work for them under these conditions. Excellent

ideas, all of you." Giles smiled proudly. "Yes, all of that is possible. No one will pay

him any more attention than they do any one else sent to them under that type of geas."

"Then let's do all of that." Willow was all for charging in and doing the binding now.

"After we give Hank a tour of Sunnydale's nightlife." Dean held up his hand to Willow.

"I want my turn at him. Even if it is just holding him while we follow Buffy on patrol."

"Dean is correct, Willow. It will make a greater impact after a tour. Say a quick turn

through one of the cemeteries and then a stop at Willie's?" Giles offered. A nod of heads

all around sealed Hank's fate. "Now Dawn, about your recent bouts of glowing."

"It's the Key." Dawn interrupted him. "You remember the big glowy magical energy

blob?"

"And you can access it?"

"Well, duh! Just because I don't know what to do with it doesn't mean I can't touch it. It's

a part of me." Dawn rolled her eyes at Giles thick headedness.

"Well then, I'll have to arrange for a teacher. One for both you and Willow. Hmmm."

Giles wandered off to the stove and began to make a pot of tea. This triggered a mass

hunt for food.


	3. Chapter 3

They spent the rest of that day lazing around the house. Sam and Willow spent their time

on their computers tracking down information on the Jekfoontar Clan and new fledges.

Dean and Xander watched TV and did maintenance on the groups weapons, from guns to

battle axes, swords to cross bows. Giles and Tara went to the Magic Box to prepare for

the binding spell on Hank. Joyce sent the day on the couch and preparing snacks for the

movie marathon Dean and Xander were watching. John and Buffy carved stakes and

watched Dawn do her school work. Spike spent the day tormenting Hank. He would get

very close so Hank could see the transformation from Human face to Demon face in clear

detail. Then he would trace a vein somewhere on Hank's body and making comments on

just how Xander would have to make the cut so as not to attract too much attention. He

even asked Joyce if he could borrow a cheese grater to simulate some road rash. He

pouted when she told him no, she needed it to grate cheese.

But the biggest shock of all that day for Hank Summers came not from Spike, but from

the girl he now knew had been glowing green. It was late in the afternoon when he

overheard the conversation between the girl and Buffy. "Mom, why can't I go too? Dad'll

be there and so will Dean and Sam, not to mention Spike and Xander. I won't get into

any trouble."

"Dawn forget it." Buffy said. "You are not going anywhere near a demon bar. And if

your dad and brothers know what's good for them, they won't even think about taking you

into ANY kind of bar until you turn 21 for real. I don't mean your physical age either,

Dawn Marie!" Buffy glared at them all impartially.

"That's so not fair! I am not waiting until I'm 35 before going into my first bar!" Dawn

pouted.

"Don't look at me, young lady." John said sternly, waving his whittling knife at her.

"Your mom is saying 21. I'd prefer when hell freezes over."

"Not fair." She mumbled, pouting even more. "I don't even get to see Spike eat Grandpa

Hank!" This she said in a rather loud wail that had Hank Summers almost wetting his

pants again. That child could not be his granddaughter. Buffy wasn't old enough to have

a daughter. And she was far too old to be Buffy's child.

"Dawn, just because you are seven months old does not mean you have to act like it."

John snapped. Seven months old? What did he mean by that? Hank wondered.

"Sorry, sir." Dawn said. "But can I at least get to see Spike feed? Please." She begged.

John shrugged and turned to Buffy. "It can't hurt. It's not like she's not going to see a

vampire feed sooner or later. And this one won't try to eat her."

"Ok," Buffy sighed. She didn't want Dawn involved, but Giles' and Anya's information

made that impossible. Maybe if she eased into it. Get Dawn involved with the research

side of things rather than the slaying/hunting side. And John did have a point. It was

going to happen sooner or later, and Spike wouldn't hurt Dawn. She didn't know why,

but there was just something in his manner towards her that made Buffy trust him.

Which was really wiggy, she thought. "But you are staying home with your grandmother.

There will be no experimenting with your magic." She held up the stake she was working

on. "Giles told me all about it. He's also told me he's going to get you a good teacher.

No experimenting! I don't want you to end up addicted like Ethan Rayne!"

Dawn blanched. She hadn't thought about that. She knew that magic could be addictive

if you weren't extremely careful. She had once asked Giles about the whole Eyghon deal

and he had been very blunt with her about it.

"Ethan Rayne?" John asked.

"You remember the cursed candy I mentioned? This was the same guy. He likes to

torment Giles. He is a chaos mage. He literally worships chaos. He came to Sunnydale

and opened a costume shop this one Halloween. We had been ordered to escort trick or

treaters by our high school principal, in costume, no exceptions. He thought we were all

juvenile delinquents. Lucky us, we picked Ethan's shop to get our costumes, which meant

that we ended up turning into them. Willow was a ghost. Xander was a soldier. That

was actually helpful because he kept a lot of the skills afterwards. Me, well, I had wanted

a night where I could forget about being a slayer for a while. It was supposed to be my

night off. Instead I became a seventeenth century noblewoman and spent almost the

entire night screaming and fainting because of the little demons and monsters running

around. Ethan's also a magical addict." John nodded. He knew addicts couldn't stop

without help and many either didn't want to stop or were in denial about their ability to do

so. Buffy's story also explained many of the contradictions he had seen in Xander. One

minute he would be acting like a kid and then next a hardened soldier like he hadn't seen

since leaving the marines. "Hopefully a good teacher will help Dawn to not get sucked

down into that."

"Buffy, it's almost time for patrol." Willow said. "We've got three fledges rising tonight.

In two different cemeteries."

"Ok. Spike, Xander it looks like we'll be splitting up tonight. Would the two of you take

care of the single?" The look she shot them reminded them that others would like a shot

at Hank tonight as well.

"Sure Buffy." Xander said and pulled out a dagger. "But if it's nearly time for patrol, I

need to feed Spike. I did promise."

"YES!" Dawn jumped up and ran over to behind Hank so she could get a good view.

Xander and Spike had already discussed with everyone what they would be doing. A

single cut across the back of Hank's right hand and it would be made in such a way that it

would be sure to scar. A permanent reminder of both his crimes and his punishments.

Xander made the cut and Hank watched in horror as Spike's game face came out. He had

seen it often enough during the day to realize that it was real. Spike placed his hand on

Hank's thigh and forearm and very slowly began to feed. It didn't take long for Hank to

realize that they were actually letting the thing feed on him. They were serious. He

began to panic and struggle against his bonds. Dawn said, "Mom." But Buffy was

already there. She pulled Spike off of Hank. When he growled at her, she merely shook

him until he stopped.

"Sorry, slayer." He said sheepishly. "Been too long." He went to stand behind Xander

who was cleaning the dagger. Everyone gathered around Hank.

"We're done playing." Buffy said, and turned to Hank. She took a deep breath to gather

her courage and was surprised to find John's arms wrapping around her. It was good to

know that she didn't have to confront her father alone. She was so focused on Hank that

she didn't notice the smirks Dean and Sam were trying and failing to hide. John shot

them a look but didn't move. "I am a vampire slayer. I didn't chose this job, I was chosen

for it. This is my team. Spike is a vampire who works for me. Xander is a demon

hunter. Willow and her girlfriend Tara are witches. Giles, the man who gave you the

bruise on your jaw, and who left with Tara , is my Watcher. John," She laid her hand on

John's arm, which was wrapped around her waist. "Dean and Sam are also demon

hunters."

Dawn came out from behind Hank. "Dawn Marie Summers Winchester." She introduced

herself. "I'm John and Buffy's daughter." She leaned down into Hank's face. "Nice to

meet you, Grandpa." She said as sarcastically as she possibly could. Then she pulled out

his gag. Xander sliced the ropes holding Hank to the chair and Dean and Sam grabbed

him by the shoulders to make sure he didn't bolt. Willow handed him a glass of water.

As Hank gulped the water Buffy said. "You will be coming on patrol with us tonight.

You need to see exactly what really goes on out in the dark. You will not try to escape.

Whether you believe it or not, we've actually been very gentle with you. What is out

there will not be. Stay with us, or you will not survive the night."

"She can't be my granddaughter. You aren't old enough to have children!" Hank couldn't

protest the vampire bit after Spike had fed, he shuddered at the thought. But he couldn't

let Buffy claim this child as hers.

"Dawn is only seven months old. She was aged by magic by a group of monks up to

fourteen. I am twenty years old Dad. I am more than old enough to have three children,

not just a seven month old baby. And yes, before you start in on one of your rants, John

is her father. Deal with it; because I'm not going to listen to it." John smirked at Hank

over Buffy's head. He knew what the other man was thinking. He and Buffy hadn't

gotten that far in their relationship, but Hank didn't need to know that. He let her go and

began to pass out weapons for the night's patrol.

It was a very shaken Hank Summers who followed his daughter into the cemetery. He

had two very large young men on either side of him and if he was to believe Buffy they

were as much for his protection as they were to make sure he didn't run off. Vampires,

magic, it was all so...he couldn't even complete the thought. John Winchester was

walking beside Buffy armed to the teeth. She wasn't carrying more than a few sharp

pieces of wood. He couldn't understand. They had shown him that the vampires were

real, so why didn't they protect her? They should have at least armed her better. And this

was considered a routine patrol?

They came up to a grave just as a hand began to claw it's way out. Hank was astonished

to see John lean up against a headstone out of the way and just watch with an infatuated

little smile on his face. Buffy stood at the end of the grave and waited, using the stake

she carried to clean her nails. Once the vampire was out of the grave, it lunged at her

faster than Hank could see. She sidestepped it without even looking. One quick swipe of

her stake and the vampire exploded into dust. It was much the same at the second grave,

except that this vampire had three others waiting for it. Hank almost fell to the ground in

shock as he watched his little girl pulverize all three of the vampires waiting for her while

John stood at the head of the grave and decapitated the vampire before it could get all the

way out of the ground.

After all of the vampires were dust they dragged Hank into a dingy bar. The customers

weren't human. Hank didn't know what they were, but they definitely weren't human. He

was plastered against the wall next to the door, with his guards bracketing him. Buffy

had gone straight to the bartender. "Hey slayer! Slayer in the house!" the bartender

called out. Hank saw several people who he thought must be vampires leaving out the

back quickly. Buffy reached over the bar and picked up the bartender. She had picked

him up!

"Willie, this is just a little warning. The swarm is over. I want a quiet summer. I'm tired

and cranky. If anybody gets the bright idea that this would be a good time to take me out,

it would really piss me off." Buffy stared hard at Willie, who got the message loud and

clear. It was not a good idea to piss off any slayer. Pissing off Buffy was even worse.

Willie nodded his head so fast it would have fallen off if it hadn't been attached. She

smiled and patted his face. After she had set him down, she turned and looked at the rest

of the bar. Somehow it didn't surprise Hank that all of the bars clients were looking at

Buffy with respect.

Buffy led the group back to her house where Giles, Tara, and Willow were waiting.

Joyce and Dawn had commandeered front row seats to what was coming up next.

Surprisingly it was Tara who took charge when they got there. "Buffy please stand here.

Mr. Summers, kneel here." She gestured at her feet. Hank was sure that whatever was

going to happen next, he really didn't want it to happen to him. With the two young men

standing at his shoulders however, he had no choice. He knelt at her feet. "Mr. Summers

you are brought before us for judgment not only for crimes against your family, but

crimes against humanity as well. You sent your sane daughter to a mental hospital, not

because you believed it was the best for her, but because it was best for you. If that was

your only crime, however you would not be here. That was only a selfish mistake in

judgment. But the girl you sent to the hospital was not only your daughter. She is The

Vampire Slayer. The one girl chosen in all the world to protect humanity from the forces

of darkness. You denied humanity her protection. As punishment for your crimes against

the slayer and humanity, we bind you with a three fold geas." She, Giles and Willow laid

their hands upon Hank's head and shoulders. "You will be a kind a courteous gentleman

to all you encounter, male and female alike."

"You will be celibate, in every way possible." Willow laid the second geas on Hank.

"You will serve the slayer line for the rest of your life." Giles laid the third and last geas.

They removed their hands.

"The geas are laid, Mr. Summers." Tara continued. "Mr. Giles will escort you to

England where you will serve out your sentence as a clerk for the watcher's council. I

suggest you use the time to consider exactly what you have done both to your family, and

to the world." With that, Giles dragged Hank to his feet and left the house.


	4. Chapter 4

Over the next two weeks, things settled down into a routine. Buffy, Willow, and Tara ran the Magic Box while Giles was in England. Buffy had instructed her Watcher to take his time and have some fun while he was home. He didn't get a chance to go very often so he was to do whatever it was he wanted to do while he was there. What she didn't know and Giles didn't tell her was that he intended to inform his family of his intention to ask Joyce Summers for her hand in marriage. While he was fairly certain his American family would be welcoming of his suit, he wasn't so sure of his British family. The idea of his marrying his slayer's mother was going to come as a shock to them. It didn't help that he had been fired from the council. But if his father or anyone else gave him any grief, he had one fool proof thing to say to them. His slayer was still alive and well after five years of serving on a hellmouth. Something no other Watcher in the history of the council could say.

The Winchester garage found quite a few eager customers once word got around that not only did they help out Buffy Summers and therefore didn't blink about 'unusual' damage, but they could also figure out a way for the insurance company to pay for it most of the time. The fact that they were good mechanics had many of their new customers promising to become regulars. The work was regular enough and the slaying was light enough that all those involved with the protection of Sunnydale were making good recoveries from the back to back apocalypses.

They were well into their second week when Dean cornered his dad. "I know you and Buffy patrol together every night. But patrolling is not dating." He shook his head. "I know it's been a long time Dad, but dating is important. If you don't start, you are going to lose her." He shoved a picnic basket into his father's hands. "Go take her out to lunch. I can't believe I'm saying this, but do something with her that doesn't involve hunting or Dawn." He hustled his dad out of the gargae before John could say or do anything, and shut the door behind him. Leaning with his back against the door he saw Sam smirking at him from the office. "Oh, shut up!"

"You know Dad's going to check you for possession, right?" Sam laughed.

Dean just flipped him off and went back to work replacing a timing belt that had been chewed off by something. "I'm surprised you haven't talked to him already, Sammy."

"What makes you think I haven't?" Sam wandered over to lean on the wall nearest to his brother.

"Oh, man! Are you two at it again?" Dean had known that things were getting tense between his father and brother again, but he'd been distracted by Dawn and hadn't been paying as much attention as he usually did. He hadn't thought they were fighting again yet and had been impressed by both his father's and brother's restraint.

"A little. Not like before though." Sam sighed. "I understand him a lot better now, but we're never going to see eye to eye on a lot of stuff."

"That's because you two boneheads are too much alike." Dean snorted. "You always have to have it your own way. So what did you say?"

"Just about what you did, that patrolling isn't dating."

"You two back to throwing punches?" Dean asked seriously. He knew San had said it wasn't like before, but he hated it when they got to really fighting with each other.

Sam smiled. "No, but apparently in Sunnydale patrolling together is dating by the way the man blushed. You hurried him out the door so fast you didn't catch it."

Dean jerked his head out from under the car's hood to stare at Sam. "Blushing!"

Sam nodded. "It wasn't as bad as when I tried, but it was still there. Apparently summer patrols are so quiet they're good for, to quote Willow, 'smoochie time'." Sam was amazed that he was able to say it with a straight face. "When I saw how bad Dad was blushing I backed off. I can understand him not wanting us to run his love life. Now that he has one that it."

Dean still couldn't process the idea of his dad blushing. When that thought collided with the 'smoochie time' quote the look on his face was enough to send Sam into gales of laughter.

"She did not say that!"

"Yes, she did!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

Before the argument could get very far Xander walked in and Dean pounced on him. "Willow did not say that, did she?"

"Say what?" Xander asked confused. He hated walking into this sort of situation. It always left him confused.

"Smoochie Time!" Dean exclaimed in disbelief, which sent Sam off again.

Xander grinned. Sometimes hanging out with these two really made his day. although they had grown up all over the US, they really hadn't learned too much teen speak, seeing as how it could be very regional. "Smoochie time is Valley speak for making out and is Willow's favorite expression for the subject. I'd have to say yes, she probably did. What brought this on?"

"She and I were talking about dating verses patrolling." Sam said between gasps.

"Oh, yes. I remember it well." Xander sighed in exaggerated nostalgia. The truth was that the one thing he really missed now that Anya had left for New York was sex. He had liked Anya, but not having her here to make her heart failure inducing comments was a relief from stress he hadn't known he was under. "Although if you are talking about John and Buffy, I don't think they've gone beyond holding hands yet."

"Smoochie Time." Dean shook his head and go back to work. He really couldn't believe Willow had said that, and about his hard headed, ex-marine father of all people!

John stood at the door to the Magic Box and wrestled with the butterflies in his stomach. He could do this. He took a deep breath and walked inside. Buffy was on the upper story, shelving books. As he climbed the steps, Buffy looked over at him. "Let me guess. Someone has been pushy and said something about us not spending enough time together."

John relaxed. "You too?"

"The matchmakers are circling like buzzards. It's like there is this weird contest to see who can get us together first." She snorted. "Dawn at least I can understand. Why the others are so bent on it, I have no idea."

"Well, I don't mind. I just tell them off when they get too pushy, but when Dean of all people says we need to spend time away form Dawn and patrolling, I figure they may be on to something."

"Dean, not Sam?" She asked.

"Sam has always wanted a more normal life. I expect him to say things like that. Dean has always been the one to throw himself into hunting. He shoved a picnic basket at me and told me to take you to lunch."

Buffy sighed. "That actually sounds good. I've been shelving books all morning. I don't know how Giles does it sometimes." She stood up and stretched. She caught him watching her shirt ride up and pretended that she hadn't. Dating a gentleman was a completely new experience for her. She wasn't used to making the first move. She was more used to having to restrain a guy's hands than watching him restrain himself. It also didn't help that John was a man used to shielding himself. But as time went on either she was getting better at reading him or he was starting to relax around her. Or just maybe, it was a bit of both. Buffy caught his hand and walked down the steps and over to the counter. "I'm off to lunch guys."

"Ok." Tara and Willow chorused and gave identical smiles which Buffy ignored. Yes, John was a good guy so far and yes, he did giver her the tingles. But that did not mean that everyone had to get all pushy and start yentaing all over the place.

John helped Buffy into his truck. When he got in the driver's seat he asked, "Where is a good place for a picnic?"

"Let's go to the beach. There isn't a lot of patrolling to do down there." She sometimes thought it was sad that her patrol routes were a consideration at a time like this. She gave him directions and they ended up in a secluded spot on the beach. They spent the next hour talking about almost everything under the sun and nothing in the dark. They sat next to each other on the blanket and shared the contents of the basket lunch Dean had given John. Where normally she would have backed off on eating nearly everything in the basket, John's matter of fact handing her most of the food relaxed her normal nervousness about eating in front of other people. When she finally got up the courage to ask him why he was so comfortable with the fact that she could eat most guys under the table, he just looked like at her like he was confused she was even asking. He made a comment that slayers needed fuel to do what they did and that seemed to be the end of the matter as far as he was concerned.

Although he didn't know what the big deal was, John knew he had answered her correctly when she gave him one of her blinding smiles. She leaned into his shoulder and he considered himself lucky that she allowed him to wrap his arms around her. It had been years since he had last done something like this. Just sitting on a beach with a girl in his arms was another thing he had given up when Mary had died. for the first time he truly had to admit that he was grateful to the monks who had created Dawn. It was they who had started the chain of events that had brought this wonderful young woman into his life. As she relaxed watching the waves crash onto the beach, he softly kissed the top of her head.


	5. Chapter 5

Giles sat back in his airline seat and reflected back over his two week holiday. Thanks to

Buffy insisting upon his acquired of a cellular phone he had been able to keep in contact

and still enjoy himself. He absolutely hated the thought that he might have been needed

and no one being able to get in touch with him. This was one insistence where he agreed

the technology was worth learning how to use it. There had been no dire need for his

help and he had been able to enjoy his stay without hesitation. He had accomplished both

of his official reasons for being in England as well as his private one. He had delivered

Hank Summers to the Watcher's training center. It was not an official learning center as

far as the public was concerned, of course, but a private library and antique collection

storehouse. It had been with great pleasure that he had delivered Hank to the Watcher in

charge of training, with a complete listing of both the geas and the reasons for them.

That Sam Zebuto was there as well gave much more weight to Hank's punishment with

his fury over Buffy's incarceration to a mental institution. He had also publicly thanked

Giles for his treatment of Kendra while she was in Sunnydale and his permission for the

pen pal status between the two slayers while Kendra had lived. Giles in turn had

expressed both his and Buffy's sorrow at Kendra's death at the hands of Drucilla. It had

been a very satisfying conversation and the capper had been Zebuto's approval of Giles'

actions during the Crucimentum and his refusal to leave Buffy's side. Zebuto was an

extremely well respected Watcher and his public approval of Giles' actions had shocked

the trainees. When one had timidly questioned him, he had roared out that their duty was

to the slayer; not to politics and Buffy Summers and Rupert Giles were still fulfilling their

duties in spite of the political maneuverings of the council. He then had turned to Giles

and quietly offered his help should it be needed. Giles thanked him and said that while

slaying was light during the summer months, he would be sure to contact him during the

next apocalypse. His offhand remark about the next time the world would be in danger of

ending impressed the trainees to no end. That had led to a long discussion of the dual

situations with Glory and the Hectalik over the previous few months. It had been a very

satisfying afternoon.

The other official reason, and also a result of the private one, was sitting beside him. A

small, some what plump woman with long dark hair, Elizabeth Giles was not only his

cousin, but an accomplished teacher with the Devon Coven of Witches. She had tartly

informed him that she would be moving to the United States to teach his charges when he

had inquired about a suitable teacher. She would also be a stand in for the rest of the

family at his wedding, should it actually take place, which she personally doubted as the

slayer's mum couldn't possibly be mad enough to marry the likes of him. If she hadn't

been grinning the entire time he might have believed she was serious in her remarks about

his chances with Joyce. As it was her reaction was much better than the rest of his

family's stunned silence. The idea of the family rebel marrying was astonishing enough,

he supposed to account for their reaction. But he was very glad it hadn't lasted long. His

mother was overjoyed that he had finally found someone to settle down with. The fact

that she was the mother of an active slayer and was aware of the situation was a bonus as

far as his mother was concerned. His father, he was amazed to find out, was also

someone who approved of his actions. Although he had waited until his son had given

him a full accounting of the circumstances surrounding both his firing from the council

and his choosing to woo Joyce before expressing his approval in his short, gruff manner.

"Only thing you could have done boy. Travers was stupid to have tried to continue the

test under those conditions. The slayer's mother is aware of your duties? And supports

them? Good." That had been the end of the matter between father and son.

It was with reluctance that he turned his thoughts to the message that had been slipped to

him by one of the clerks who had witnessed Zebuto's encounter with Giles at the

beginning of his holiday. Zebuto's insistence of loyalty to the slayer over council politics

had already begun to produce a satisfactory result. The clerk had clandestinely come to

him with the information about Faith as he was the only watcher who had any current

contact with the troubled slayer as far as she was aware. If anyone would know the truth

about Faith's situation, she had said it would be Giles. After questioning Giles

extensively about Faith's progress in her rehabilitation, she had cursed Travers, handed

Giles a folder and left. After reading the contents of the folder Giles had joined the clerk

in her swearing fit. Quentin Travers had arraigned for Faith to be released from prison

due to the fact that she had been underage at the time of her confession. This was a ploy

so Travers could get his hands on Faith. He planned to take custody of her until her

eighteenth birthday (which was less than a week away!) at which time he would put Faith

through the Cruciamentum. And he was going to ensure that Faith was unable to survive

it because he wouldn't allow her any weapons at all.

Damn the man! Wesley had been working hard with Faith and her psychiatrist. The

doctor was convinced that Faith would be able to resume her slaying duties within a year.

But if Quentin's manipulation of the situation went unchecked, Faith would either end up

dead (the most likely outcome) or be lost to them forever as she would break again under

the strain of resuming her slaying too soon. He could not allow that to happen. The very

idea of turning over ANY slayer to Quentin Travers now made his skin crawl. Wesley

would be waiting for them at the airport. He hoped Wesley had some ideas on how to

circumvent Travers plans because he was spectacularly clueless as to how to do so.

Wesley was not at the airport. He was currently driving as fast as he could without

drawing attention to himself straight for Sunnydale. He was extremely grateful to have

received Mr. Giles' phone call. The information had come not a moment too soon.

Fortunately, Quentin Travers had not bothered to keep track of him after the council had

fired him or he would have realized that Wesley also had a copy of guardianship papers

for Faith. And that he had been working with both Faith's psychiatric physician and the

warden of her prison.

After Mr. Giles' phone call he had gone straight to the prison to speak to the warden.

Once there he had walked in on Travers' lawyer demanding to have Faith released into his

custody at once. The warden had dismissed the lawyer's claims saying that although his

paperwork was in order, he did not have guardianship over Faith. When the lawyer had

protested that he worked for the IWC which was Faith's guardian of record the warden

had leaned forward and asked where the IWC had been while Faith was in her custody?

She had pointed at Wesley waiting patiently at the back of her office. "He not only has

the proper paperwork stating that he is Faith's legal guardian, he has been here a

minimum of three times a week, every week. He has been to every joint counciling

session that Faith's psychiatrist has scheduled. He has met with myself and the heads of

each of the three shifts of guards once a month to check on her behavior and to see if

there was anything he could do for her or us. The last thing Faith needs right now is an

indifferent guardian. As Mr. Pryce has the proper paperwork and hasn't gone more than

three days without checking on Faith the entire time she has been here, I am refusing to

release Faith into anyone's custody but his. Good day, gentlemen!"

Wesley knew it was only due to the shock of the warden's refusal that he was able to get

Faith out of the prison without interference from the lawyer or the retrieval team the

lawyer must have had waiting. Now they were headed straight for Sunnydale. He had

called Doyle and sent him to pick up Mr. Giles and whomever was accompanying him.

He thought that the lawyer would go to the Hyperion looking for Faith. Travers wouldn't

believe that Wesley or Faith were still friends with anyone in Sunnydale, and so would

send the retrieval team to Wesley's place of residence. Too bad for them Angel and Gunn

would be waiting.

Faith kept looking behind them. She didn't know what was going on, but she trusted

Wes. He had gotten her through a lot of heavy shit while she was in prison. Not to

mention the fact that she had really been sorry she'd hurt him. He was an ok guy now that

he'd gotten the stick out of his ass. It had gotten to the point where she was telling him

more than she told the head shrinker that he had gotten her. Not that she was stupid

enough to think that she didn't need to see the doc anymore. She figured she'd been

through enough shit to keep that lady busy for years, and that was before the whole being

called as the slayer deal. But she and Wes were duing their best to build the kind of

relationship that B and Jeeves had. That had been one of the hardest things of all to

admit, even harder than the fact that she had screwed up. B was a better slayer than she

was. But she had done it because it was the truth. Doc kept telling her that if she kept

denying the truth she would always remain locked in the prison she had made for herself,

being a worthless slut bomb just like her mother. It had hurt being told straight up what

she had done to herself besides the obvious, but it was worth it in the end. If she hadn't

been able to admit it to the doc, she wouldn't have been able to say it to Wes, and he

would never have realized that no one had ever told her about a slayer's hyped up drives.

She had always thought they were just her. Buffy didn't seem to have any problems with

wanting sex and huge amounts of food all the time. As Wes wasn't her first Watcher, he'd

thought she'd already known. He'd told her about the meditation potential slayers were

taught as one of the many ways to divert and control what he had called 'slayer induced

moods'. She'd told him he made it sound like a planet sized case of PMS. He'd just

looked at her and said that too, on occasion. The whole thing had really rocked her

world. It had taught her that there was good stuff waiting on the other side of the pain,

she just had to face the pain first.

Facing up to the fact that Buffy was a better slayer than she was had made her ask the one

question she had never bothered to ask before. Why? When she had asked Wes and the

pain and resentment had poured out of her he hadn't done what she had expected and

given her a platitude. He'd actually admitted he didn't know. Then he'd done the

unthinkable. He'd gone to Giles and asked for Buffy's Watcher diaries. Even more

amazing, Giles had given them to him. Then he had taken her own diaries and compared

them. What he had found had shocked them both, although for different reasons. She

had never known that Buffy had trained every day both with Jeeves and on her own. It

was something she had never seen. What had shocked Wes was that Buffy had managed

to ride the fine line between giving in to the slayer and letting it ride her. Watcher raised

slayers were taught to never give in to the slayer as it would bring disaster. Faith hadn't

even tried. She had welcomed the slayer with open arms and look where that had gotten

her. It had come as one hell of a shock. It had also explained what had been happening

to her while she was in prison. By being determined to pay for what she had done she

had chosen to control the slayer spirit rather than let it control her. It didn't make the

drives any easier to take, but little by little, the things that had been driving her nuts,

didn't bother her so much. But still, now that she was out, she was going to have to figure

out new ways to deal with things. She hadn't expected to get out so soon. And why was

she out? The warden had known she was underage when she confessed. Everyone had

known. As long as she was willing to plead guilty no one had cared how old she was.

Wes in fact, was one of the very few who had cared at all. It had taken a while, but she

had finally figured out that Wes had over heard her beg Angel for death. That had been

her rock bottom, not prison. And how sad was it that prison had been a step up for her?

"You can stop looking. They won't expect us to go to Sunnydale. They'll be looking for

us at the Hyperion." Wesley said when Faith looked behind them for what seemed the

hundredth time.

"Who is they? And why'd they spring me? I ain't ready Wes! Doc said so!" Wesley

noticed her fidgeting increase.

"They are the Watcher's Council. And as to why, I'm afraid that is because you are about

to turn eighteen." Wesley said flatly.

"Oh Shit!" Faith breathed. B had warned her about the birthday present the idiot's

council had given her for her eighteenth birthday.

"Indeed. If you die during the Cruciamentum they rid themselves not only of a rouge

slayer in an approved manner, but they will also have an new slayer to deal with. Buffy

has refused to work for them and they cannot or will not persuade her otherwise."

"Yeah, some poor girl who's had her brain turned off so they can order her around until

she dies." Faith shuddered. She felt terrible for the potentials raised by the council.

Yeah, they got the information and training they needed, but who wants to be a

brainwashed robot? "Thanks Wes."

"For what?" he asked puzzled.

"For not giving up on me."


	6. Chapter 6

Wesley was searching the streets of Sunnydale. What he was looking for, Faith wasn't

sure. She had asked, but he'd said they weren't going to the Magic Box. She was all for

putting off meeting the Scoobies, but what her Watcher had up his sleeve was beyond her

for the moment.

"Don't worry, Faith. I do know what I'm doing."

"Wes, you drag me down here and now you're not headed for the Scoobies. What's up

with that?" Faith asked. "I thought we were going for help."

"We are. Travers' men won't be fooled by Angel and Gunn for long. Once they figure

out that we not only aren't there, we aren't coming back, they will come looking for us

here. We need a place to hide and I have some where to go if I can just find it. AH!

There it is. The Winchester Garage."

"A garage? Named after a rifle? Wes, did we step into the Twilight Zone while I wasn't

looking?"

Wesley chuckled. "No, Faith. The garage is owned by a family by the name of

Winchester. An obscure branch of the famous rifle making family I do believe. They are

demon hunters by profession and mechanics by trade. They've recently moved to

Sunnydale due to,...Well, I'd rather not explain as it isn't my story to tell. I hope you

understand."

Faith nodded her head. "Yeah, I get it. As long as the Scoobies don't think we're going

behind their backs. This is their town. The last thing I want to do is cause trouble right

off the bat."

Wesley pulled his car around to the back of the garage. "Hopefully at least one of Buffy's

friends should be here. If not, it won't take long to send her a message." He got out of

the car and opened the passenger side door for her. Then he led her into the garage.

There were two hunks standing by the office door. They were watching the only car in

the garage with shock written all over their faces. Faith didn't know what was so

surprising about the car, but she did know the giggle that was coming from underneath it.

"Hey, B. Is that you?"

"Faith?" There was a quick shuffling under the car and Buffy slid out from underneath.

Unusually, she was filthy and dressed in torn jeans and a worn plaid flannel shirt. Her

hair was up and there were grease streaks all over her clothes and face. The smudges on

her face looked suspiciously like fingerprints from fingers that were far too large to be

hers.

"Wes, what are you two doing here? I thought you were picking up Giles from the airport

today? And Faith, aren't you still supposed to be in jail? Or did I lose a letter? Oh, crap I

lost a letter didn't I?"

Before she could panic, Wesley held up his hand. "Buffy," Wesley began. "This is an

emergency. I sent Doyle to pick up Mr. Giles. He'll be bringing Mr. Giles and Mr. Giles'

guest straight to Sunnydale. Quentin Travers arranged for Faith to be released on a

technicality. He did it because she is going to turn eighteen in just a few days."

John had crawled out from under the car while Wesley had made his announcement and

got a good look at Buffy's reaction. He didn't know what Faith's turning eighteen had to

do with anything, but the way Buffy just froze told him it wasn't going to be good. "Do

they know you have her?" Buffy asked Wesley flatly. John had never heard that tone of

voice out of her before, not even when she was dealing with Hank. Whoever this guy

was, John didn't want to be in his shoes. Whatever he had done to put that much ice in

Buffy's voice, John wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Unfortunately yes, they do. I just managed to get her away from the council's lawyer at

the prison." Wesley stood there waiting. Either Buffy would help them or they would

have to go on the run. He prayed that the letters Faith and Buffy had been exchanging for

the last few months had done the good they were intended. He knew it was too soon to

hope for a real friendship between the two slayers, but he did hope that the animosity had

died.

"Sam, start the Scooby tree. Wes, does Giles know about this?"

"Yes. He is the one who informed me."

Buffy nodded her head and began to pace around the garage. "We can't do anything until

the other's get here."

"Faith, Wesley, have the two of you eaten yet?" John asked. They shook their heads.

"Dean, take them upstairs. Sam, send everyone up when they get here. Buffy, let's go get

some food to feed this crew." From the tone John used the boys knew that he would

accept no arguing. Silently they went about their jobs. Sam didn't mention Faith or

Wesley when he called Willow. Whatever was going on with them obviously shouldn't

be advertised. Dean took both of their latest guests upstairs to the apartment.

Dean stood at the breakfast counter and fixed several sandwiches. He had heard his dad's

remark to Buffy about going to get food, but according to Dawn, Faith was a slayer. That

meant she should have a huge appetite and from the looks of her, she hadn't been feeding

it. She wasn't quite the walking skeleton Xander had described Buffy as being during a

really bad time, but then it looked like she had more to start out with than Buffy did.

Faith was taller and had more curves, especially if the clothes she was wearing were any

indication of her normal weight. Faith looked, well he hated to think this of a slayer, but

she looked almost fragile. She was also extremely nervous, pacing around the living

room and checking around the curtains. He didn't know who this Quentin Travers was,

but from the reactions from all three of them this guy was planning something nasty for

Faith. He knew he was a sucker for a good looking woman in trouble, and Faith fit the

bill. But there was something that had him relaxing almost before he realized it. Buffy

was getting ready to defend her or do something along those lines. Whatever Faith had

done besides killing that human on accident, Buffy at least, had already forgiven her.

That was good enough for him. He had come to trust Buffy's judgment on things she

knew about and he didn't. He carried the sandwiches over to her. "Here, it looks like the

prison had you on half rations for a while."

"You tryin' to tell me somethin'?" Faith smirked as she took the plate. She knew she

hadn't been eating enough. She'd lost way too much weight, even she could see that. She

wasn't looking like one of those Jews out of Nazi Germany just yet, but if Wes hadn't

gotten the warden to agree to his paying for her to have extra food she probably would

have been. He'd also brought in food at every visit and she'd inhaled it, but even with all

of that, she'd been losing weight steadily. She'd had no idea that just struggling to learn to

control the slayer would be such a workout. She only hoped that the lessons she had

learned in that area would still work out here in the real world.

"Just that you look like you'd fit that outfit really well if you'd put some weight on." Dean

flirted with her. He didn't want her to see how concerned he was. It looked like Faith

was another slayer who needed some help with the feeding department.

The door to the apartment opened and Faith spun around. Dean could see that she was

really worried. Willow, Xander, Tara, Joyce, Sam, Buffy and John all walked in carrying

donut boxes. Faith relaxed upon seeing the food. She remembered how the Scooby gang

worked. If anything serious was going on it was pizza they brought to the research

sessions (and donuts if the time of day wasn't right for pizza). The food meant that they

were going to help her.

"Ok, everybody's here except for Dawn and Spike. I take it he's baby-sitting?" Dean

asked as he grabbed two of the donut boxes from his brother.

"Uh huh." Willow nodded. "We left them at the Magic Box."

Faith walked to the center of the room. Before they got started on her little problem with

the English Idiots, she had something she had to get off her chest. "Um, I know I've said

this in the letters I wrote to all of you, but this is the first time I've seen you so I need to

say it again." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I know I went off the deep end there

for a while, but that was no excuse for the things I did. If you think I should just let them

take me for this test thing, I'll go." She shrugged. In her mind these were the only people

who really had the right to put her through the test. They were the heroes she had

wronged. If they thought she needed to be put through it she would go without protest.

"Faith, sit down, eat and shut up." Xander said. "There is no way any slayer should ever

be put through that. Yes, you screwed up. Yes, you tried to kill us. But you didn't and

you went out and put yourself in jail to pay for that. It isn't your fault that you got out

before any of us were ready for it. But the first thing out of your mouth is an apology,

and that means a lot. There isn't one of us here who hasn't screwed up more than once.

You've done your time and paid for it. Now we need to deal with the jackass Watcher

and his idea of an appropriate coming of age present."

"For those of us who just got here." Sam asked to distract people's attention from Faith

and Dean who handed Faith a glass of milk and made sure she had lots of donuts, "What

are we talking about?" From the looks of things to him, it seemed that Dean had finally

found someone else to mother. Not that he'd ever warn Faith that his brother was the

biggest mother hen in the universe.

It was Buffy who answered. "If a slayer makes it to her eighteenth birthday she's put

through a test called the Cruciamentum. Basically they give her a medication that takes

away her powers and then she's locked up with a vampire and told to kill it or be killed. I

don't know how they normally get a slayer ready for the test. When I went through it, the

vampire was even worse than usual and he got loose. He captured mom and told me he

had her. It was a trap of course." Buffy gave her mom a hug. "I tricked him into

drinking holy water, but I don't know what they are planning for Faith."

"Travers is planning on making sure Faith dies in the test. He won't allow her any

weapons." Wesley said. He was holding himself as still as he could. It wouldn't do any

good for him to throw a fit. Travers wasn't in the room for him to strangle after all.

"No fucking way." Dean said. He had unconsciously moved in front of Faith to protect

her.

"Exactly!" said Willow.

While everyone got down to discussing precisely what they would do to the lawyer and

retrieval team. "We can tie them up, paint them like an American Flag and send them

back to England!" Sam was watching his father and brother silently fight over who's

slayer got more donuts. As both Faith and Buffy were concentrating on the problem at

hand and barely noticed more than someone had handed them another donut, he didn't

think they were aware of the strange competition. He could just see now how big their

food bill was going to get. Especially as Faith needed fattening up. He'd have to talk to

Willow about setting up a feed the slayers fund. It would be worth the effort to see the

look on John and Dean's faces when he handed them the paperwork for the account.


	7. Chapter 7

The one thing that was quickly agreed upon was that Faith and Wesley shouldn't be left

alone. There was no telling how quickly the retrieval team would get to Sunnydale and

no one wanted to take any chances. While the Scoobies went back to work, and thus

being very visible to anyone looking for them, Wesley went downstairs with the

Winchesters. That left Faith and Buffy alone together. Finally after watching Faith fidget

for a few minutes, Buffy let Faith off the hook. "Look Faith, what Xander said goes for

all of us. You weren't the only one who made mistakes. I was just so caught up in mine

that I couldn't see anything else. Clean slate?" She offered, holding out her hand.

"Clean slate." Faith agreed, taking it. "I know there's a lot of things I should be asking

about. But B, I gotta know. What was up with the car? I ain't never seen you look this

crappy unless you got slimed on patrol or something. And the two hunks were wiggin."

Buffy giggled. She knew why Dean and Sam had wigged. And it had nothing to do with

the car. John had asked her to hold up some car parts underneath the car so he could bolt

them back into place, but they hadn't done much actual work on the car. Somehow with

all of the wiggling and hold this here and watch that, they'd gotten into a tickle fight. And

John was surprisingly ticklish. She didn't think they'd ever heard their dad giggle before.

At least the tickle fight had led to some smoochies. "I don't think they've heard their dad

laugh much. I mean, how was I to know John was ticklish there?" She gave Faith an

innocent look.

Faith wasn't fooled. "So you're dating the old guy huh? Not that it's any of my business,

but why him? The other two are way better looking."

"Actually I think you've hooked one of the other two." Buffy said with a smirk. "But the

answer to your question is a rather long story. First off, do you remember Dawn?" Faith

shook her head. Dean had mentioned a Dawn, but that was the first time Faith had heard

the name. "The memory spell must have just covered Sunnydale then. This group of

monks had this big blob of magical energy they were trying to keep out of the hands of

this hellgoddess. Her name was Glory. Before Glory killed them all off, they took some

of my blood and some of John's and made a magical test tube kid. That's Dawn. Then

they put the Key in her, aged her up to fourteen, gave us all fake memories of her being

my sister and plopped her down right in the middle of my life. We found out the truth

about five weeks ago. God, has it really only been five weeks?" Buffy started counting

on her fingers. "Yep, five weeks. Once we figured out that she was made to hold the

magical energy blob, she wanted to know why she didn't look like me if she was made

from my blood. That led to us finding out that she was my daughter, and then Glory

attacked us and Willow sent Dawn to her dad for protection." Buffy glared at Faith.

"Don't ever think that she isn't real. Just because she was conceived through magic rather

than natural means doesn't change the fact that she's my daughter." She smirked at Faith

as something else occurred to her. "Of course, if you hadn't been in prison and were in a

better spot to protect her, Dawn would be your kid, not mine."

"What!" Faith screeched. There was no way she could have a kid! She was too screwed

up, she wasn't stable, she...got a good look at Buffy giggling her way off the couch. She

grabbed the other slayer before she fell. "All right, all right. Good one, B. Now tell me

the truth."

Buffy stopped giggling. "It is the truth Faith. They just wanted a slayer to be her mother

and to protect her. She probably would have come to you as a baby or something instead

of how I got her as my little sister. They really didn't care. They just didn't want Glory to

get hold of the Key because if she did, she would have torn the dimensions apart. The

reason I was laughing was the look on your face. I haven't seen an expression that funny

since I gave Mr. Gordo to Dean.

"Anyway, Willow sent Dawn to John and wrote a note about Glory and Dawn being his

daughter. Now, he, Dean and Sam are all demon hunters and have been since Dean and

Sam were really little. I mean, Watchers start their training at ten, but those two were like

way younger than that. John said something once about at least Dawn didn't need to get a

swat on the butt to learn not to break salt wards. So I'm thinking they were really young

when John started fighting. John sent Dean and Sam here to Sunnydale to help with

Glory. That didn't take very long, and after she was taken care of John brought Dawn

back to Sunnydale. Then, my luck hits and we get hit with another apocalypse, only this

one isn't just find the thing and kill it. No, we have these little three foot long demons

swarming all over the place like lemmings! And we needed to keep them out of the

hellmouth. It lasted for a whole week! By the time that was over, they had settled down

here." Buffy waved her hands around at the apartment. "And John and I were doing the

parenting thing together. Then everybody and their dog started yentaing at us." Buffy

rolled her eyes. "Most of the time we just tell them off if they get to pushy, but the truth

is we just kind of fit. Between taking care of Dawn, and helping my mom, and patrolling

together, we just kind of fell into dating. Although we've had a lot of help falling." She

grumbled but Faith could tell she didn't really mean it. Faith could tell she was happier

than Faith had ever seen her. In fact she was so happy Faith was wondering at her own

blindness. How could she have not seen that Buffy was miserable when she first came to

Sunnydale? Yeah, ok, she had her own trama she was dealing with, but still.

"Good. Cause if I get through this whole test thing I'm going to have to let him know I'm

part of the shovel squad." Faith smirked. They might not be best friends, but Buffy was

still another slayer. She'd have to let this John guy know that if you messed with one

slayer you messed with both.

Downstairs Wesley was dealing with his own version of the shovel squad. All three

Winchester men had him backed against a wall in Sam's office. "I don't know the details

of Buffy's Cruciamentum. All I know for certain is that Mr. Giles was fired over the

matter. I've come to agree with him that it is nothing more than a barbaric exercise in

mindless cruelty. I refuse to allow my slayer to be subjected to something so terrible."

He crossed his arms and stood his ground.

"Your slayer huh?" Dean said.

"Yes, I was assigned to Faith after her first Watcher was killed. Of course the council

tried to have me as Watcher for both Faith and Buffy, but the truth is that would never

have worked even if everyone had agreed to it. Every slayer needs her own Watcher. By

trying to be both girls Watcher at once I made a huge mess of things because I wasn't

paying enough attention to Faith and too much to politics. She had been put through

some extremely trying times and needed someone who could concentrate solely on her

well being. Not be continually distracted by another slayer and council politics. I made

that perfectly clear to the council when they tried to get me to put the blame for the

situation upon Mr. Giles. I refused to do so. That led to my being fired from the council.

However, as Mr. Giles had taught me by example, being fired by the council does not

mean you have been relieved of your responsibilities to your slayer. It is her decision and

hers alone who is and who is not her Watcher. I very glad that Faith gave me another

chance to prove that I had learned my lesson."

All three men nodded. Wesley made sense. In a situation where a fifteen to sixteen year

old girl was forced to face the horrors of slaying day in and day out with no relief in sight

except death, she would desperately need someone's full attention and support in order to

survive. They had been well aware for years that on a job the slightest mistake could lead

to death for the hunter. And slayers weren't given time off in-between hunts. She hunted

every night from the time she was called until she died with no breaks. Even what would

be a serious injury for a hunter, requiring weeks or months to heal from, would heal in

hours or days for a slayer. That was one of the reasons they died so young. Buffy was the

one who had broken the pattern. She had family, including them to ease her burden.

"I'll have to have a talk with Giles about this." John said. He knew that Giles was

protective of both Buffy and the rest of Buffy's family. He was one of the very few

people, in fact, that Buffy would allow to baby-sit Dawn. That in and of itself was very

telling to John. Blood family didn't mean an automatic ok for baby-sitting as far as Buffy

was concerned. She had been polite and hadn't told Sam to his face that he couldn't watch

Dawn, but she had made sure that only those she knew were the best fighters watched

their daughter. The only exception to the rule was Joyce and then only when they were

behind the wards at her house. He still needed to know what had happened though. It

didn't sound like a good experience for Buffy. He didn't admit to himself that he really

didn't need to know, he just wanted to know more about Buffy.

Dean on the other hand was concerned about Faith. Wesley's determination that Faith not

go through with this test and his belief that it was the slayer's decision, not the Watcher's

council's which determined who served as a slayer's Watcher told him that Wes was a

good choice for their newest slayer. And Faith was theirs. She had already become a part

of their little family. Well, not so little anymore, Dean thought. Four hunters, two

witches, two Watchers, two slayers, a grandma and a little sister, not to mention the pet

vampire, did not a small family make.


	8. Chapter 8

Quentin Travers was furious. How could that wimp Wesley Pryce manage to remove the

slayer from the prison with his lawyer right there! He paced the confines of his hotel

room. The retrieval team had tracked down Pryce to his workplace and his place of

residence. The man worked for a private detective who had his office in a hotel of all

places. It was fitting that the only employment the man could find was as a secretary to a

sordid divorce snoop. After his distinct failure with two! slayers, he shouldn't be

involved with the war at all. How had he known where the slayer was, much less have

convinced the Warden to release her into his custody? It had taken the council almost a

year to find her after she escaped. True, they had expected her to travel much farther than

LA, but that was beside the point.

Travers thoughts were interrupted by the return of the retrieval team. They looked

wrecked. "My Good God, Man!" Travers said in shock. "What happened to you?" The

eight man team looked at him with disgust. They were glad only Sampsom had to deal

with the puffed up little prick. Sampsom wished with all his heart he could deal with

anyone else, but Travers was the one who was paying them. And it was his job to deal

with the clients.

"That P.I. Pryce works for owns the damned hotel. He pays the local Tommy boys to

watch it and he's got the local bobbies in his pocket too. The one thing we did find out is

that Pryce isn't there and he's not expected back for a while." He took an ice pack one of

the men handed to him and held it to his jaw. "Is there anywhere else he would go with

the girl?" How he managed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, he didn't know. Travers

couldn't find a way to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

He was starting to wonder if any of the intel Travers had given them for this job was

accurate.

He ran his thoughts over the information they had. Faith was a slayer. That much was

true. He'd talked to one of the men who'd tried to capture her before. There had been

some confusion with the last team sent in to do the job. He hadn't been able to straighten

those reports out so he'd filed the entire thing under cluster fuck and gone from there.

Travers had said she'd gone rogue and was killing humans for a demon. He'd have

Preacher check with the prison and find out what she was in there for and more

importantly, for how long. If it was longer than the few weeks at most that Travers had

said, then most of his information was most likely to be a fucking fantasy. It didn't

change the job that much. They were being paid by the day to catch this girl. It didn't

matter to him what Travers did with her afterwards. The man's attitude he could put up

with as it was something that was common among men who hired mercs. He just hated

working for men who couldn't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight.

"Pryce wasn't her only visitor." Preacher spoke up from where he had his laptop opened

on the table. He hadn't gotten the nickname for preaching the word of god, but for

constantly preaching about preparedness. Weapons, med supplies, information, if he

thought they needed it he went after it with a single minded determination that the others

found down right scary. The only thing that scared Preacher was getting caught with his

pants down. "She also had visits from a Liam Angel, that's the P.I., Rupert Giles, who is

currently out of the country but expected back shortly, and a Dr. Nancy Butelong, who

lives in Sunnydale, California. That is the entire list of outside contacts."

"Well, Mr. Travers? Do you wish to continue?" Personally Sampsom hoped like hell

Travers gave this one up as a bad job. He didn't want to go anywhere near Sunnydale or

Rupert Giles. He'd known the man in his street days, and wouldn't cross him if he could

help it. He knew the man had gone straight years ago, but like himself, he also knew it

wouldn't take much to let the street kid back out again. Just a couple of pokes to the right

button. Unfortunately he knew the look on Travers face all to well. He was obsessed

with getting this girl. Somehow he didn't think this would end up being the start of a long

contract like he'd hoped.

"Of course we're going to continue!" How could the man even think about doing

otherwise? There was no way to return the slayer to her rightful place as the Watcher

Council's property without getting rid of that blasted Faith. The other one wasn't really

their problem anymore. She'd be dead soon enough and she'd passed the line on already.

No, it was Faith that was the important one. Get rid of her and the war could go back to

what it was supposed to be.

"Then we go to Sunnydale." Sampsom said. And hope like hell Ripper isn't home yet, he

thought.

John and Buffy were grateful that they had established the habit over the last few weeks

of patrolling alone together. With everyone crowding into either the Summers' house or

the Winchester's garage it was impossible to find a moment's privacy. Buffy walked on

John's right side with his arm around her shoulders. That way John had his right hand

free to use his weapons. Of course, this meant that Buffy's right hand was wrapped

around his waist, but she was more than fast enough to make up for that. "You did notice

how Dean jumped in front of Faith when we were talking about the Watchers coming for

her right?" She asked John. John nodded. He just hoped she hadn't noticed them

fighting over the donuts to give their slayers. "Well, I'm thinking we can send some of

the yentaing their way." She waved her fingers in a little pushing motion.

John chuckled and tilted her head up so he could kiss her. "That sounds like a good idea.

I've got a little something I can give him, too." It would serve Dean right to get his own

'care kit'! If it hadn't been for the vampire that Buffy could sense nearby, she would have

made the kiss last longer. As it was, they had to get to work.

As much as she hated to admit it, this was even better than with Angel. Buffy sighed as

she returned to watching for something that needed killing. With Angel she'd been so

hyped up on both teenage and slayer lust that she'd missed vampires she should have

slayed. All of Angel's attention had been on her. Riley she didn't even want to think

about, the man refused to go on patrol with her without backup. Like she wasn't backup

enough for the entire town and had been for years before he showed up! John, well,

somehow he managed to find the balance between the job and paying attention to her.

Plus, he never got grabby. "Dawn wants to go over to a friend's for a sleepover. I've

checked the family out, they aren't demons or vampires. It's summer, so there isn't a lot of

activity. What do you think?"

"When is it?" John wasn't sure about the idea of sleepovers for his daughter. Dean and

Sam hadn't done the sleepover bit, it had been too dangerous. He wasn't sure why it

would be safer here on the hellmouth. Then again, Buffy had checked the family out

already.

"Friday night and Saturday morning. It's a big party and I think I can go as a big

sister/help the parents deal." Buffy knew that John was very wary of Dawn going

anywhere without someone to watch over her. She wasn't much better herself. "Do you

think you and the others can cover patrol for me?"

"That's not a problem. If you're going to be with her, I don't see a problem with the party.

It'll be all girls, right?" John frowned at the thought of boys near his little girl in sleep

wear.

Buffy smiled. She could just see the 'I'm her father and you are not getting near my baby

girl' look cross John's face. She'd bet that he didn't even realize it. Any boy who tried

anything with their daughter was going to be in for a shock! "No, there won't be any

boys. We've also come up with a cover story. When Mom got sick she started going over

paperwork on a just in case the worst happened sorting spree. She wanted everything

taken care of so we wouldn't have to worry. What she found out was that Dawn's

adoption was never finalized. She wasn't legally hers. So she went and looked for Dawn

biological parents and found out that you had never been told about Dawn in the first

place. Her birth mother is dead. You didn't want to break up Dawn's family here, but you

also wanted to be her father. That's why you moved here, and that's where Dawn was for

the two weeks. She was helping you get your stuff together to move here. We started

dating, and that's why she calls me Mom. Because she's determined to get us hitched.

What do you think?"

John nodded. Not only was it a good story that covered all of the questions, it was very

believable what with all of the adoption screwups that had been all over the news in the

last decade or so. People who didn't want to see below the surface would be more than

willing to accept it. It would paint him as a cradle robber, but then he hadn't objected

when the boys used the cover of him being a drunk, either. He could put up with the dirty

looks he was sure to get. If he thought about it, he'd actually earned those. He'd caught

enough flack over the years on other things that one more wouldn't make a difference.

"Go for it. It covers all the bases and it has the advantage of being very realistic. Are you

ready for the fall out of publicly dating a man more than twice your age?"

"Please!" Buffy scoffed. "Angel was more than two hundred! I have no problem with

your age, and if anyone else does, screw them! I've got much more important things to

worry about." John smiled and kissed her again. When he kissed Buffy, all thoughts of

cover stories fled his mind. As was becoming usual, the kiss was perfect. He knew he

should be concentrating on the patrol, but he just couldn't help himself. It had been so

long since he'd had this feeling of contentment. He knew he was going to lose Buffy too,

but maybe this time, he would get to go first.


	9. Chapter 9

This was one confrontation Giles would have given a great deal to have avoided. "Buffy's

Cruciamentum was not something I'm proud of, John." He said quietly, while looking at

his hands. He was slumped into his chair in the Magic Box's office. "Just thinking about

it makes me want to drink myself senseless, to be honest. I can't believe I went as far as I

did.

"You need to understand that this test has been used for over twelve centuries. I am most

definitely NOT promoting its use. No, I protested when I was first ordered to give it to

Buffy, but I did start the procedure. Just doing that about killed me. I knew it would

destroy any chance of trust between us after, but I convinced myself that we needed the

information from the council too much to lose their resources." He snorted at his own

folly. "I was a bloody fool. We've done very well here without them. Then Travers told

me that the vampire escaped. He wanted me to help recapture him so the test could

continue. I simply couldn't continue to give Buffy the potion. She was far too scared,

and in honesty I was too horrified at my own actions. Instead I told her what was going

on. She hated me for it and I deserved that. When I told Travers what I had done, he told

me that the test was going forward anyway as Buffy had already entered the house where

the vampire was staying. I rushed to help her, but by the time I got there she had killed

the vampire. I was fired by Travers in front of Buffy right after he complimented her on

surviving the test. She told him that he had better get out of town before she recovered

her powers. I'm not sure that the man realizes just how much we all loathe him."

John slumped in the other chair. This was not what he had expected to hear. He throttled

down his own rage at Buffy's being poisoned by Giles. That he was still here, and Buffy

still trusted him, was something he already knew. If he let himself get angry over

something that had happened over two years ago, that hadn't involved him, and had

already been put to rest by the ones it did involve, it would only hurt Buffy. He may not

have been the sharpest tack in the box, but he knew Buffy had already made her stand on

the situation clear. She trusted Giles. And he needed to concentrate on the Watchers who

were coming after Faith.

"How do we deal with the Watchers who are coming for Faith? The kids were talking

about painting them up as American Flags and sending them back to the council."

Giles smiled. "Amusing, but I doubt it would be effective. No, Travers won't be using

the Watchers Council's retrieval team for this. They've already failed to capture Faith

once. He'll be hiring mercenaries. There are soldiers of fortune out there that know about

our war, and like most mercenaries, they don't care which side hires them. They only care

about being paid."

John ran his thumb over his lip. "Then our best chance is to separate them and deal with

them one at a time. Travers though, he'll need to get the fact that we are all backing Wes

and Faith." Travers was the man Buffy blamed for the torture. He couldn't call it a test.

all right then. Travers was the one who would get the full force of whatever they could

come up with. The mercs, well, running in the circles he did, he knew quite a few of

them. Giles was right about their loyalty to their employer. They would stay loyal only

as long as they were being paid. In their eyes that wasn't dishonorable, it was just

business. After all, they had no idea who their next client would be. It wasn't uncommon

for them to be fighting on one side for one war or job and then the next be working with

or for someone they had worked against on a previous job.

Tara slipped into the office. "Mr. Giles! They're here. Xander spotted them driving past

the construction site."

Giles straightened up. "Did he see how many men there are?"

Tara shook her head. "But Willow is already hacking into the motel and hotel's

computers. Sam is hacking the Realtor's. We should know where they are staying in

about half an hour or so."

Giles nodded. "Call the others. Let them know we will be setting up surveillance shortly.

Once we know how many of them we are dealing with, we'll put together a plan. For

now, Wesley and Faith are to stay out of sight."

A large mansion the Jekfoontar clan had purchased years ago served the clan as their

headquarters, and the ballroom of the mansion served as the throne room. Meg stood

before her father in a private audience. This would not be good news. But she had to tell

him. "Father, the seer has had another vision. The hunter's children have all been born

and the foreseen warrior is among them. He has three, and they have all grown to be of

an age to threaten us. They are united at last."

"How did this HAPPEN!" The demon roared. "I killed the hunter's wife. I killed the

bitch who was carrying the third child of that line! How could there be another child!"

"The child is female, and was hidden from us by magic." Meg kneeled before the her

father's throne and hoped that he would not take out his anger on her. "The hunter sired

her himself. Not one of the boys."

"That's impossible! The clan has tracked him for years. He has never had the time to

create a child!"

Meg didn't bother to tell her father that humans only needed about ten minutes to achieve

the conception of a child. It would do no good. The fact that the humans created children

so easily was one of the reasons they had managed to cover the world so fast.

"Where are they!" He screamed.

"The Hellmouth, Father. The hunters have allied with the slayer."

"Gather the clan. We will go to the Hellmouth."

The men were adamant and Sampsom had agreed with them. They would rather take

rooms at the dingy motel than stay another night in Travers company. They didn't know

they were being watched. Once they had settled into their rooms, they went to find a

local bar. That was where they picked up their tail. A scruffy drunk who stumbled after

them, made so much noise and was so obvious, that they completely dismissed him from

their minds once he went into another room at the motel. They shouldn't have been so

sure. The drunk was John. He had not only counted how many men had left the rooms,

he had also spotted someone he knew.

Travers had gotten himself a large room at the only hotel in Sunnydale. As he wanted to

be in and out of the town as quickly as possible, he decided to stay away from renting

anything larger. He too, was quickly under surveillance, although he didn't know it. Tara

had told the hotel's owner, another native of Sunnydale, that the man was someone they

wanted to keep an eye on, and would he please let Tara take care of his room while he

was here? The hotel owner didn't think of himself as a fool. He knew who Tara was, she

was dating the redhead who was part of the neighborhood watch. Those girls were

simply too sweet to be involved with anything dangerous. Anyone that they wanted to

keep an eye on, however, usually was. He was very proud that his town had produced

such good girls as these, that they wanted to help the police protect their little town from

outsiders such as this fellow. He also had no problem with getting a little free help with a

difficult guest.

Tara was surprised to see that Travers had not put up any wards in his room. It was like

the man was completely blind to the fact that he was vulnerable. She bit her lip, thinking.

It would be so easy to transform him into something more matching his internal spirit.

But that wouldn't be wise. The others wanted to do something to the man as well. He

was the one who had put Buffy and Joyce into danger with that awful test. Still, that

didn't mean his stay had to be comfortable. A whispered spell and the bed was rendered

useless to Travers. No matter what he changed, as long as the bed itself remained, he

would experience the exact opposite of whatever he wanted from the bed. If he wanted

his pillows soft and fluffy, for him they would be hard and flat. If he wanted his sheets

smooth, they would be scratchy, and so on. She was sure she could come up with other

little things to do. She wouldn't go so far as to actually curse him, but making him

uncomfortable enough to leave on his own was acceptable by her mother's rules.

Willow was busy hacking Traver's accounts with Sam's help now that they knew where

the men were staying. If they could track down the payment Travers had given the men,

or found out where he was getting the money and blocked it, they could break the tie

between Travers and the men he had hired. Giles and John had both assured them that

the men would not do anything for Travers if he couldn't pay them.


	10. Chapter 10

Frank Holt was in trouble. There was a very familiar Impala parked in front of the store he had gone into for his candy. If the Winchesters were in town, they would not be happy that he was trying to catch a girl to hand her over for who knows what. He had only seen what John Winchester had done to a rapist once. Once was enough. He had no wish to find out what John would do to them should he find out what they were up to. He prayed that John just had a simple job here in Sunnydale.

Of course, that wasn't to be. Before he had taken another step after spotting the car, he was surrounded by all three Winchesters. "John! What are you and your boys doing here?"

"Hey, Frank. I see you've sunk low." John smirked at his friend. "Are you really going to try and take Faith back to those bastards in England? Do you know what they want to do to her?"

Frank held up his hands. "Sorry, John, all I know is that she's killed some people while she worked for the Brits and they want to take care of the mess. She was working for the other side, man. I know you don't like the idea of jobs on women, but she's made her bed. Besides I'm just here to make sure she goes back to England."

"She's done her time for that!" Dean snapped. "She turned herself in. If it wasn't for Travers she'd still be there, talking with a head shrink and starving herself half to death just to pay for what she did when she went off the deep end." Frank looked at the kid's eyes and shuddered. There was more going on here than just defending a woman.

John saw the shudder and knew that Frank had realized this wasn't a simple job. "Frank, you're not an idiot. Faith made some mistakes. She's paying for them. But, that really doesn't matter now does it? Because even if she hadn't volunteered to put herself through hell to pay for those mistakes, you would never touch my son's girl, now would you?"

Frank froze all the way down to his toes. One of John's boys was dating a slayer? It had to be Dean. He was always picking up wild girls. On the other hand, Sammy was the one more likely to settle down, slayer or not. "Sammy's got himself a girl now? Damn, I'm getting old. I remember when he was just toddling around and we had to make sure he didn't eat the bullet casings."

"Faith isn't my girl." Sam said shortly. "She's Dean's."

Frank hadn't realized that the silent one was Sammy. "Relax boys. Your dad is right, I'd never touch family; especially not for the little prick running this job." Frank swung around and looked up at Sam. "Damn boy, you've gotten big!" Frank meant what he said. There was no way he'd turn a member of his adopted family over to Travers. And John's boys had stolen his heart years ago. "Dean, are you sure you know what you're getting into with this girl? I ain't asking because of the job you know. I don't want to see you get your heart broke the same way your old man's was. Sorry John." He added in apology.

"That's ok, Frank. I know you're just worried about my boy." John smiled, and Sam was amazed at how quickly the situation was turned around. It never failed. The bonds created by serving together were strong, but not as strong as those created by serving under fire, and hunting the things that went bump in the night created even stronger bonds than that. Frank had joined Pastor Jim's special flock nearly twenty years ago after John had saved him from a group of ghouls in the cemetery where his family was buried. "I'd appreciate it if you would explain to whoever is in charge that there is no way any of us are going to let Faith be taken by Travers. He wants to take her powers away from her and lock her up with a vampire without any weapons. She'll be completely helpless."

Frank nodded. "So you and your boys are going to defend her. What does the little shit want to do that for?"

"If he kills Faith, he can control the next slayer to be called. He can't control either Faith or Buffy."

"That makes a lot more sense than what the jackass was trying to feed us. So what's new besides Dean finding a steady girl?"

Sam smirked. It was time to tease, just a little. "Oh, not much, we've got a new half sister and Dad's dating her sister."

Frank stopped dead in his tracks. "There is no way I heard that right, Sammy. Did you say John was dating your sister's sister?"

Dean burst into laughter. "It gets better! I'm dating her sister!" He dissolved into giggles at the look on Frank's face.

"Don't mind the comedy duo, Frank. It gets rather involved but here it is." John led the way back to the Impala. "I got drunk one night and had a one night stand. It produced a little girl, but I can't even tell you what the mother's name was. All I know is that she put the baby girl up for adoption and she named me the father. A wonderful lady named Joyce Summers adopted the baby. She named the baby Dawn. She had a health scare a while back, cancer. That's why she had the paperwork checked out. It turns out the adoption was never finalized. She tracked me down because Dawn's birth mother is dead. She wanted to know if I'd take Dawn if she died. Well, you know how I am about family." Frank nodded. It was one of the things he admired about John. The man was loyal to his family. "I was worried about that damned demon of course. I took Dawn for a couple of weeks and we moved here. It turned out that Dawn's older sister is a slayer. Her name is Buffy Summers. I'm dating Buffy and Dean's seeing Faith of course."

"Yeah, if Joyce wasn't dating Giles, all we'd have to do is set up her with Sammy and then we'd really be in a tangle."

"Shut up, Jerk!" Sam said and tackled his brother to the ground.

"Ow! Knock it off bitch!" Dean yelled back. The brothers were soon fighting and tussling.

Frank turned back to watch the boys fighting styles. "They've gotten better from the last time I saw them." He said to John.

Preacher wasn't happy with this job, and he had been very vocal with Sampsom about it. There was something wrong about this whole thing. He just knew that they were missing something. He knew that the shit head hadn't given them the information they needed for this job. Sampsom had told him that he knew Rupert Giles and there was no way in hell was this guy to be messed with. Preacher hadn't found all the information he wanted because he couldn't get into the files the Watcher's Council had on Rupert Giles. No matter how hard he worked at it, he couldn't get through. It made his skin itch. Why would a former run away street brat, who had gone back home and shaped up, quit his prestigious job at the museum and travel to the United States to be a high school librarian? It didn't make sense. It had to be something to do with his job with the Watcher's Council, but the man had been fired and had chosen to stay. Why? What held the man here? It wasn't a woman; the only dating the man had done was with a teacher who had died several years ago. No former street brat would be that sentimental.

He walked along the streets heading for the local library. The shit head had actually thought that the girl had only been in the prison for a few weeks at most. Shit, she'd been there for more than a year. Idiot. He could have gotten her at any time if he'd done his homework. How many times did he have to say it? Preparation is the key to success! But even he wasn't prepared for what happened next. A woman with a scarf wrapped around her head stopped him in the street. She was a cancer patient, he automatically thought. No threat, but she was pissed about something. "Are you one of the men working for that idiot, Travers?"

Shit, if even a woman like this knew they were in town, Sampsom's hope that they could escape Giles' notice was shot to hell. "Yes, ma'am, I'm afraid I am."

"Well then." She backed him up against the wall of a nearby house. "You should be ashamed of yourself. That poor girl had a break down and Travers is the one who wouldn't let her get any help. We all tried, but thanks to his interference she completely lost it, and eventually ended up going to that prison to get the help she needed. She is my daughter's sister slayer and you will not be allowed to turn her over to a man who is going to execute her for his own mistakes." Joyce waved her hand, signaling the rest of her team. They had done their own preparation for this moment. Spike picked up the merc from behind and Xander tied his hands together. Between the two of them they quickly had him hog tied and gagged. "Faith has a lot of friends in this town who are very proud that she has done so much to get herself back on the right track. We aren't going to allow anyone to interfere with that; especially not Travers!"

Spike slung the merc over his shoulder and carried him over to Joyce's SUV. Once there he carefully laid him in the back of the vehicle. He patted the man on the face. "Don't worry, mate, where you're going you won't need much."

They quickly drove to one of the cemeteries and dragged him out of the back. Joyce held open the door to one of the crypts and Spike carried the merc inside. Once there Spike went out to play guard while Xander and Joyce placed Preacher into an empty stone coffin. "Are you claustrophobic?" Joyce asked gently. "Because if you are we can leave the lid off. Not that it will matter much, the crypt is well sealed. But at least you won't be sealed into a tiny box."

Preacher nodded his head frantically. He definitely did not want to be sealed into a stone coffin. "Alright." Xander said and produced a set of chains. "These are just to make sure you don't go anywhere." He quickly chained Preacher down and then he and Joyce left the crypt together. Willow was waiting outside and she sealed the crypt with her magic. "He won't be getting out until we say so, now, on to the rest of them."

Jose just wanted to get as far away from both his team mates and his employer. This was small town USA, there had to be a coffee shop around here somewhere. Just as he turned a corner, he was hit from behind. When he came to, he found himself tied to a chair in a room somewhere. It was dusty and had been long abandoned by the looks of things. "Hello!" Chirped an incredibly young voice. He looked around and saw three girls, one of whom couldn't be more than fifteen at most.

"You are one of the men who work for Travers. I know it's just a job for you, so we've got a deal for you." The little blond was the one speaking. "The chair you are tied to is wired with a bomb. If you don't move, you'll be fine. Move, and well, you won't like the results. We are going to go take care of your employer, so if you are good and don't move, we'll untie you when we're done. Do you understand?" Jose nodded. He didn't give a crap about Travers, but he really didn't want the rest of his team to know that he'd been taken out by three little girls. What was worse was none of them were the slayer they were supposed to be tracking. "Good. Bye then." All three girls waved as they left the office. Dawn and Buffy stopped to watch Tara seal the room with her magic.

"Do you think we should have told him it was a magic bomb that would make all his clothes vanish?" Dawn asked.

"Nah, he'll find out all on his own if he misbehaves." Buffy reassured her.

Wolfgang was delighted that the music store at the very small mall had a good, although not great, selection of classical music. He noticed the young man going through the classical rock section next to him. The kid seemed to be typical of the young people here, leather jacket, necklace, and a bunch of leather strips around his wrist. Normally he would have dismissed the kid from his mind, but he was on a job, even if he had been given a little leave time. What he didn't know was that Dean was the distraction. Dean looked up at the tall German mercenary and made a face at his selection. "God, dude. Can you get any crappier stuff?"

"I'll have you know that this is some of the finest music to ever be performed, bar none." He said haughtily.

"No way, man." Dean shook his head, and got a little closer. "There is no way that crap can ever compare to this." He held up a cassette of Blue Oyster Cult. As Wolfgang was about to start defending his choice in music, Sam reached up and poked him with a small dart. Before Wolfgang could swing around and punch his, until now unnoticed assailant, Dean had grabbed him. The potion Tara had whipped up for them was quick acting and their target crumpled almost instantly. "Wait! I got an idea." Dean grinned. This one was going to be good. He passed the unconscious man to Sam and went over to pick out a CD. Then he picked up a player and went to pay for them.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked as they carried their burdens out to the Impala.

"Did you, or did you not see what that guy was picking out?" Dean asked his brother. Sam grimaced. He'd noticed all right.

Dean pulled the Impala up to the same office building that Tara, Buffy, and Dawn were walking out of. "Hey, ladies! How did your pick up go?" Dean asked pulling out his purchases from the back seat.

"Just fine. Do you need some help?" Buffy asked, looking at the man in the backseat.

"If you're offering, I won't say no. Slayer strength would be a plus in getting this guy up to the room." Sam hurriedly said before Dean could turn her down. Dean might be too stubborn to take help when he felt that he had the situation in hand, but Sam would take whatever help he could get right now. Lugging someone up a flight of stairs was never fun.

Buffy waited until Sam and Dean had dragged the man out of Dean's car and then swung him up in her arms. Her carrying the man made the trip a lot faster. They got to the room, Tara and Dawn following out of curiosity. Each target was being dealt with on an individual basis by those picking them up. The only common thread was that each was to be sealed into a small empty room until Travers was dealt with, which would mean that their jobs were over. Sam pulled a chair over to the center of the room and Buffy sat the man down on it. Quickly tying the man up, they then checked out what Dean was doing with the bag he'd carried up to the room. He was deep in discussion with Tara who was nodding. Then he set up the CD player so that it would play the CD he had bought on continuous repeat. Nothing he could do to it would stop the music thanks to Tara. Buffy was puzzled as to why Dean was playing what she would consider a workout CD, but shrugged. There were still more mercenaries to deal with.

Hound was checking out the local whore house. Even a small town like this had one. He was too busy checking out the working girls to notice that two men had followed him in. If he had, he would have seen that one was Rupert Giles, a man Sampsom had warned them all not to cross, and the other was Wesley Pryce, the man who had stolen their target right out from underneath their noses. Both men were angry, but they didn't want to take too much of their anger out on this man. He was only a mercenary; this was just a job to him, nothing more. No, it was Travers they both wanted.

"Mr. Giles, if this man was interested in a show, perhaps it would be best to give him one." Wesley whispered to the older man.

Giles frowned in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I seriously doubt he truly understands just what kind of establishment this is. If you would allow me?" Giles nodded and waved Wesley on ahead of him. Wesley went and talked to the Madam of the house. The arraignment was quickly settled on and the Madam quickly ushered the Watchers to one of the back rooms. A few minutes later two bouncers brought Hound in. They tied him to a chair and placed a magical mirror in front of him. "Sir, I believe that you are aware that magic is real, correct?" Hound nodded; internally he was cursing his luck. These were just the two men he really didn't want to see right now. "Good. Now, if you do not agree to forget about your pursuit of Faith, you will be forced to watch the activities of the others in this establishment until we deal with your employer. Will you agree to drop your pursuit?"

"No way! Travers is a jackass, but I took his money and he hasn't called off the job yet. Sorry, but I got a rep to maintain." Besides, he thought, watching wasn't all that bad.

"Very well; Madam Daisy, if you will?" Wesley gestured at the mirror. She smiled and waved her hand over the mirror. Hound stared at it in shock and horror as the Watchers left him. How in god's name had he managed to find a demon brothel?


	11. Chapter 11

Hans wondered where Wolfgang had gotten to. He, Sampsom, and Ben were stuck in the motel room until the others got back. He knew Hound and Jose would be taking their time, and Preacher would take all night if that was what it took to get what he was after, but Wolfgang and Frank should have been back already. They were just going to the stores. "It's taking too long, Sampsom. They should have been back by now." He paced around the room, checking out the window.

"Settle down Hans. This is just a sleepy little town. The only one we have to worry about is the slayer and I'm not even certain she's here. More than likely she just stopped by to get money or something along those lines. As long as Ripper doesn't find out we're here, we're fine." Sampsom leaned back on his bed. He couldn't have been more wrong. From out of the a/c came a creeping fog. As the men jumped up to try and turn the a/c off, thinking it was about to blow up or something, they fell down asleep. A few minutes later, the door opened and Willow walked in. She had magically gassed all of the rooms the mercenaries were in, but this was the only room that was occupied. The others would be here soon to deal with the last of the men Travers had brought to Sunnydale.

Everyone was gathered in the room just half an hour later. Faith was shivering and trying to hide it. "Here," Dean offered her his leather jacket. Wesley was making sure he stood between Faith and the men on the floor. Giles flipped the men over onto their backs with his foot.

"I know this one. Split into two groups and deal with these two. I'll deal with Mr. Sampsom here."

Buffy recognized the look on his face. "Let's go guys, he's about to go Ripper on his ass." The Scoobies grinned and with Spike and Buffy picking up the other two unconscious men, left the motel room. Giles pulled up the best chair in the room and waited for Sampsom to wake up.

"What did Buffy mean?" Dean asked as they walked out to their vehicles.

"Oh, Giles was a real terror when he was a kid, fights, black magic, orgies. You know, the usual for bad boy don't want to be a Watcher types." Xander said as he helped Spike load one of the mercenaries into Spike's Desoto.

"You're joking! Mr. Giles?" Wesley exclaimed looking back at the motel room.

"Jeeves?" Faith looked back as well. "No way!"

"Yep, and the last time he went Ripper on someone he threw a sword through the mayor when he said he was going to eat me." Buffy confirmed. The Scoobies nodded in agreement, while Sam and Dean joined Wes and Faith in staring at the room. John however, wasn't nearly as surprised. Giles had already shown himself to be a man who bucked tradition, and that usually meant rebellion sooner or later. With Sam, that had translated into going to school to pursue a 'normal' life. As the life of a Watcher was full of books, and studies, and as far as he could tell, being a proper English gentleman, John could see a young Giles turning into some kind of punk. John was just thankful that Giles had gone on to become a Watcher for Buffy's sake. He really didn't want to think about what would have happened to her with a regular Watcher.

"So," Xander said, rubbing his hands together. "What are we going to do with these two?"

"I want to save the flag for Travers." Buffy said.

"I vote we tie them up, string them up like worms on a hook, and hang them out over the grotto." Xander spoke up.

"Ok, that's good for him, but what about the other one?" Faith said as she pointed first at the one Buffy had and then at the one Spike had. "We don't want them together."

"Oh, I got an idea!" Spike said. "Leave it to me."

"Ok, but take the guys with you." Buffy said. She hefted her merc into the Impala.

"Hey! No body drives her but me!" Dean said, and ran for the driver's seat, pulling off his gloves as he did so. He never handled his baby with gloves on, it would have been rude. Buffy shrugged. She never drove anyway so it didn't matter to her. She had long since gotten over her inability to drive. Willow and Tara got into the front seat beside him, and Faith, Buffy, Dawn, and Joyce got into the back with the merc stretched over their legs.

Willow provided directions and Dean was glad to get his baby there in one piece. The Impala had been nervous, but settled down once she realized Dean wasn't going to let one of the 'others' drive her. Everyone got out and Dean grabbed the rope from the trunk. It only took a few minutes for them to get down to the grotto and arrange the merc trussed up over the water. He was hanging feet down, and was just waking up as Faith tied off the rope.

"Oh! You're awake. That's good, now don't you struggle too much." Joyce called. "I'm not sure what is down in that water, but considering everything else that lives in this town, it can't be good. Now, all you need to do is stay still, and you'll be just fine. We'll let you go as soon as we've dealt with that awful Mr. Travers." Hans looked around wildly. There was no way he could get down without getting dropped into the water. He was stuck, and the slayer Faith was standing right there with a bunch of other girls. He sighed and agreed to the lady's request. He'd known things were going to go wrong.

The guys piled into the Desoto and Spike drove over to a restaurant he knew. When questioned by the others he just smiled. He picked up a bunch of rope. "You lot get him tied up. I'm going to set the stage." Smiling, Spike slipped into the kitchen through the back door. Shrugging at Spike's behavior, John supervised as Sam and Xander tied up the unconscious merc.

Spike came out with a demon dressed in a traditional chef's outfit. "Don't you worry none about this bloke. They don't eat humans here, but he won't know that." He grinned as the merc started to wake up. "Ok then, get him up."

Ben looked around, and wished he wasn't gagged so he could curse. That idiot Travers had gotten them in it now! He was dragged into the kitchen of a restaurant, but not a human one. This one was manned by demons! He was placed in a corner with a bunch of bags of supplies. He watched a blond man shake hands with a demon who was apparently the one in charge of the kitchen. Ben paled; the demon was paying the man. He walked by Ben and leaned down to whisper in his ear. "You shouldn't have gone after Faith, mate. She's got a lot of friends in this town. We like slayers here."

Sampsom woke up. He immediately knew he was in trouble. Rupert Giles was standing over him, cleaning his glasses. "Hello, Sampsom. It has been a long time. Now what are you doing, being so stupid as to take a job with Quentin Travers? I know you've done you're homework. You knew this was my town before you ever set foot in it."

"The Watcher's Council put up a big price on this job, $1.5 million for the capture and return of one of their people who went over to the other side. I had no idea we would be coming here. I only found out you were here at the last minute. I had already taken the down payment. We couldn't go back on the job after we took it." Sampsom hoped like hell that Ripper would accept his explanation; it was the truth after all.

"Well, this only complicates things a little. You see, I know exactly who you are trying to capture for the council, and I must tell you that neither you nor the council will be allowed to touch her. Faith had a mental break down, you see. It was a terrible thing. She might have never gone as far as she did if Travers hadn't interfered. She has recovered although she is still in the process of healing right now. So you see; it is not Faith who is in the wrong at the moment. She was sitting, voluntarily I might add, in a prison cell, trying to pay for the crimes she had committed. She was also getting the psychiatric counseling she needed. She was well on her way to becoming a warrior for the light once more when Travers interfered again. This time it will not be permitted. You may keep the down payment for the work you and your men have done so far, but the job is finished. All of your men have been dealt with, and Travers will be dealt with in the morning. You lost this time. I cannot let you leave town however, without keeping my promise." Giles reached down and dragged Sampsom to his feet.

Great, Sampsom thought, I had really hoped he had forgotten that. The beating he received was short, but brutal. When it was over, Giles stood there wiping his hands on his handkerchief. "Don't think you're off the hook yet, Sampsom." He said, and he pulled out a bottle with an oddly shaded green liquid inside out of his pocket. He calmly opened the bottle and poured it over Sampsom's head. Sampsom began to shrink and change color. Shortly a bullfrog sat where Sampsom had just a moment before. Giles picked up the frog and put him in his pocket.

Giles entered the bar where John's friend Frank was drinking and waiting for the outcome of the confrontations he knew were coming for his teammates. He looked up when Giles sat down in front of him. "You are Frank Holt, I believe?"

"Yes, that's me. You're one of John's new friends right?"

"Yes. I do believe that this is yours." Giles pulled the bullfrog out of his pocket and set him on the table.

Frank looked down at the frog. "He looks a little worse for wear."

"The spell will last as long as the bruises. I'm afraid it is the result of a promise I made to him many years ago. You will find that Travers will be unable to pay you anymore for your time." With that information, Frank put it together. With the British accent, an old promise, and Sampsom's absolute belief that Rupert Giles wasn't someone to mess around with, this had to be Sampsom.

"Alright," Frank sighed. "You just let me know when I can get the rest of my team. We'll leave as soon as I can get them altogether." Frank saluted Giles with his beer and watched him walk off. "Hell, Sampsom, you said he was a mean mother fucker when he wanted to be, but damn!" He shook his head. He was very glad that John had spotted him and let him get out before anyone did anything to him.

Quentin Travers was absolutely miserable. He could barely gag down the food that the kitchen had sent up. The temperature in the room was far too hot and nothing he did could get it to go down. The bathroom had nearly scalded him when he tried to take a shower. The less said about the bed, the better. He had the worst case of indigestion he'd had in years and he was far too uncomfortable to rest. When the door opened at five in the morning, he was ready to call it quits. This was the worst hotel he'd ever had the misfortune to stay in.

However, when Wesley Pryce walked in followed by Rupert Giles, Faith, Buffy and Buffy's family, (although he didn't recognize most of them) he blustered at them as though he was in the Watcher's Council Headquarters themselves. "How dare you barge in here! It is bad enough that you are interfering with council business, but must you disturb me in my own hotel room?"

"It is you who are interfering with my duties to my slayer. I will not allow you to do so again, considering the consequences last time. Faith is my slayer. You washed your hands of her a long time ago, and we of you." Wesley stated as calmly as he could.

"We are here, Quentin, to show you that we are supporting Faith and Wesley." Giles said. "You will leave them alone, or face the consequences."

"I'm also here to make good on the threat I gave you the last time you showed up here." Buffy said. "Did you really think you could come here of all places, and I wouldn't find out about it?" Faster than he could see, Faith and Buffy grabbed Travers arms and forced him back onto the bed. Wesley came up and opened Travers pajama top. Willow traded places with him and set a stick on plastic American Flag on his chest. It glowed for a moment and then Willow removed it. Travers now had a magical tattoo of the flag on his chest. She signed her name underneath it and it too, became a tattoo. She passed the pen to Wesley who signed and then passed it to Giles. Giles signed and passed it on as well. This way all of those present added their names to the tattoo, including Buffy and Faith. When it came time for Tara to sign, she added a bit of a geas as well. Travers would be forced to travel back to London as soon as it was possible to do so.

"This is outrageous! You can't do this!" Quentin raged.

"That's the trouble with you, Quentin. You think that just because you are in charge of a terribly rich and influential organization you are immune to receiving the results of your own actions." Giles stated plainly. "You brought this on yourself. We know exactly what you had planned for Faith. It will not happen. There will be no Cruciamentum for Faith. You are not going to use that as a method of execution to cover up what is plainly your mistake. Faith is regaining her health in spite of you. The mercenaries you hired have been dealt with. They will not help you any longer as you are unable to pay them. You may check your accounts. You won't even be able to use the Council's accounts to hire anyone else. They also believe that you are a first class idiot and the only reason they listened to you at all was that you were paying them too. If you had bothered to even notice the slightest thing around you, you would have known that quite a few people share this opinion. I will state this just once. Leave the United States and do not return. The consequences should you return will be more than just a tattoo you cannot remove next time." With that, they all left the room.

John was quick to let Frank know just where each of his team mates was, although the condition each was in was rather surprising to the other members of the team. Preacher had actually fallen asleep. Jose was still tied to the chair, but he had set off the bomb and was now naked and laying on his side. Wolfgang was crying and begging to be put out of his misery. Hound was doing his best not to puke, but once he was out of the chair and away from the mirror, barely made it to the bathroom in time. Hans was trying to remain as still as possible because there were things swimming around under his feet. Ben was terrified he was about to be cooked, although the head chef reassured the team that no one in the restaurant ate humans. Sampsom, of course, was still a bullfrog. The team went back to their rooms where John met with Frank and got a promise to get together for a few beers the next time Frank was in the area. They quickly evacuated their rooms and headed out of Sunnydale as fast as they could. They would never work a job for Quentin Travers again, they agreed.


	12. Chapter 12

Dawn was terribly excited. It was the night of the big sleepover at Janice's house for her birthday. She went over the things she had on her bed; sleeping bag, pillow, her cool pajamas, Janice's birthday present, the warding charm that Tara had made for her, both of her throwing knives (her dad had finally ok'd her carrying them outside of practice), her box of rock salt (which she carried at Dean's insistence because she'd never heard of a vengeful spirit in Sunnydale, although she had heard about the school's poltergeist one year), her holy water and stake (she wasn't stupid enough to leave the house without those), and her outfit for the next day. She sat down on her bed and packed it all into her bag. She hoped that everyone would be alright this weekend. Dean and Sam were out of town taking care of a job. Sam had a vision and they had taken off to take care of the problem. With them out of town; Buffy skipping patrol tonight to help out with the party, Giles taking care of Grandma through her last bout of chemo (and wasn't that something to celebrate!) and Elizabeth working with Willow and Tara on figuring out just where they were in their witchcraft, her dad and Xander were on their own for patrol. Wes had forbidden Faith to even think about going out slaying, she wasn't ready physically much less mentally. Of course they would be she told herself. Everyone carried cell phones and knew that all they needed to do was call for help if they needed it. Tonight she was going to have fun that had nothing to do with the supernatural, even if she did have to do the exercises her dad and Elizabeth had started her on.

"Hey, are you ready to go?" Buffy asked from the doorway.

"Yeah, I just need to get my stuff from the bathroom." With that quickly accomplished Dawn proceeded to give Buffy a do and don't list of what would be acceptable behavior at the slumber party. "I don't want to be pushy or anything, it's just that it's bad enough you're going to be there in the first place. I know you have a little trouble seeing me as a grown up sometimes, but I really can do this by myself."

"Don't worry, I plan on hanging out with Janice's mom and help with passing out cake and ice cream. Her mom thinks I'm there just so Giles and Mom can have quiet night together. I promise to stay out of the way, at least unless you have the same problem I have with celebrations and something bad happens." Buffy pulled Dawn into a hug. "I'm just there as backup in a just in case fashion, nothing more."

The party was in full swing and Buffy was having fun hanging out with Janice's mom. She had really needed the extra help in the kitchen, although Buffy had pointed out that she couldn't cook anything that resembled edible. She had laughed and put Buffy to opening jars and handing out food as it came out of the oven. With fifteen teenaged girls running through the house, the kitchen was in almost constant use.

"So, let me get this straight." Kit said. A group of five of the girls, including Dawn, was upstairs in Janice's room. "You're adopted, but it was screwed up."

"Uh huh," Dawn said through a mouth full of ice cream.

"And your mom went and found your real dad, who moved here so he wouldn't wreak your home life?" Tracy asked. Dawn nodded again.

"And your sister, Buffy, the one downstairs helping my mom, is dating your dad!" Janice asked with an expression akin to horror.

"It's not that bad. They don't have a blood link or anything. Buffy has always liked older guys, and this way at least she gets a good one. My dad's a lot better than hers." Dawn said calmly. She'd known that her friends would be freaked over her parents dating. "Besides, this way I can call Buffy, Mom and get away with it." She said smugly. The idea sent the girls into gales of laughter, which intensified when Buffy brought in a tray of snacks. She looked at the girls strangely, but true to her word to Dawn, did nothing but set the tray down and returned to the kitchen.

When the girls had calmed down enough to grab the snacks off of the tray, Erica asked Janice, "When are you going to open your presents?"

"After everyone dances themselves out; I know we're on a sugar rush but it has to run out sometime!" She giggled. Just then the shutters on her window slammed shut and locked themselves. "What the hell?" Janice yelped.

Dawn jumped up and tried to open the shutters. She couldn't move them, they were being held with something other than just a simple latch. "Let's go downstairs." She had to get to her mom; it seemed the Summers celebration curse had hit her full force. If I have to get hit with a family curse, she wondered, why couldn't it be psychic powers or the Jekfoontar demons? She much preferred the Winchester curses to the Summers ones.

Buffy was looking out the kitchen window when it happened. All of the doors and shutters slammed themselves shut. Hell, couldn't there be one party that a Summers girl went to without it turning into a disaster? She tested the handles but they weren't moving. Janice's mother tried them as well. "Why won't they open?" She tried to break down the door.

"I don't know, but it can't be good. I'm sorry, but I have to get to Dawn." Buffy said. Her instincts which had been quiet throughout the party were now screaming at her to find her daughter and tear whatever was threatening her to pieces. It only took a second to center herself and then she kicked the door off its hinges.

"Don't worry about it. I wish I could learn to do that. Are you taking one of those karate classes the college has?"

"Private teacher, I've studied with him for years." Buffy said, seizing on the excuse gratefully; she'd never been able to come up with good ones quickly. Even the cover story they were using for Dawn wasn't hers. Joyce had been the one to come up with it. They rushed into the living room together and found the girls were pinned to the walls. There was a strange dead looking little girl dragging a doll spinning in the center of the room. Buffy didn't even think, she simply attacked; only to find that she went straight through the spirit. Janice's mother swiftly joined the girls on the wall next to the kitchen door. Buffy was sent up to the ceiling. Very faintly Buffy could hear the little girl singing some kind of song, but not even her slayer hearing could make out the words.

Dawn and the other girls had managed to break out one of the panels in Janice's bedroom door. Hurrying down the stairs they started to turn the corner at the bottom and froze at the sight of the cake knife, now decorated with a fake tail, floating around the room. Seeing the ghostly girl still spinning in the center of the living room, Dawn made the connection. "Janice! Has anything like this happened here before? Have you had flickering lights, scratching noises, anything ghostly like?" Janice frantically shook her head. Ok, then it had to be something imported to the site, Dawn thought. She peeked around the corner to get a good look at the girl. Kit peered over the top of her head.

"What are we going to do?" She whispered.

Dawn was studying the girl. She was wearing an old fashioned pinafore set and seemed to be fairly healthy, despite the dead look of being a ghost. She was old enough for the body to have stopped smelling at least, so there wasn't going to be any help there. "Janice did your parents buy anything new recently, anything old that is? Like an antique of some kind, or an old chest or something? Or have they done any home improvements lately?"

"Dawn what is up with these questions? We've got to do something!" Janice whispered harshly at her.

"I am doing something!" Dawn whispered back. "If we don't know where the ghost is coming from we can't stop her."

"Ghost?" Erica asked.

"Oh, please! That is sooo a ghost!" Kit exclaimed also keeping her voice down.

"Focus people! Janice, do you know if your parents have done anything like that?" Dawn asked again, trying to have patience. None of these girls were Scoobies or anything after all.

"Dad went and bought that large cedar chest for my birthday. He said that we'd have to have the lock fixed but it was such a nice chest he had to buy it for me." Janice answered, hoping that Dawn knew what she was talking about. "That's it, there's nothing else."

"Ok, um, you'll probably want to burn the chest if what I think is in there actually is. If it isn't we may have to do it anyway, sorry." Dawn said, knowing that Janice had been thrilled to get the cedar chest.

"That's ok; I don't want it if it's haunted." Janice quickly answered.

"Tracy, your arms are longer than mine. Can you reach my bag?" Dawn asked. The girls quickly traded places and Tracy just managed to snag Dawn's bag and drag it back around the doorway and over to them. Dawn grabbed her bag and pulled out the container of rock salt. "Ok, we need more salt and lighter fluid or something like that and someway to light it."

"My dad keeps starter fluid in the basement for the barbeque, and Mom's got some salt down there too." Janice said. Dawn seemed to know what she was doing.

"Good. Here, all of you take a handful." Dawn passed out some of the rock salt. "If the ghost gets near you, throw it at her. I mean right through her. It'll make her break up for a little while. Janice, where's the basement door?"

"Right here under the stairs. It's got my mom, Dawn!"

Dawn grabbed her friend in a hug. "Don't worry; this is what my new family does as a hobby. They check out hauntings all over the US. Dad's been teaching me the ropes so I'll know what to do." Janice was suddenly very glad her friend had met her real father, even if he was a cradle robber and was old enough to know better like her mother was always saying about men who dated so far outside their age bracket.

Janice led the way down the basement stairs and the starter fluid, a box of kitchen matches and several canisters of salt were quickly gathered up. Then Dawn led the way back up the stairs and to the doorway to the living room. The floating knife was now slamming into the walls not far from the girls. If they didn't end this quick someone was going to die. Dawn desperately wanted another member of her family there, but somehow this ghost had taken Buffy out. She didn't know what the ghost had done, but there was no way Buffy would have left without being forced, and that was the only reason Dawn could see for her mother not to be there. Hopefully, Buffy had gone for help.

"Ok, now we're going to go in there and throw the salt. That should disrupt the ghost for a few minutes. When she disappears, cover me and I'll go for the cedar chest." This was a good time to put her lock picking lessons from Spike to good use, she thought. With a deep breath, the five girls charged into the room, throwing the salt. Caught by surprise, the ghost vanished. The force holding the knife up and the people to the walls (and ceiling) vanished as well. Buffy dropped to the floor and hit it with a thud. She was on her feet in an instant, but Dawn was already at the chest. "Buffy! I need you to break this open, NOW!" Buffy didn't bother to ask. She just put her hands on the chest lid and heaved. The sight inside was what Dawn had been expecting; a mummified body of a little girl. She was still holding the doll. Dawn quickly covered the body with salt and the others joined in. Then she grabbed the started fluid and started squirting.

The ghost girl materialized in front of Kit and she threw the salt she had grabbed another handful of. She was lucky and caught the ghost right in the face. "Hurry Dawn, she came back!"

"Tracy light it!" Dawn exclaimed.

Tracy lit the match and dropped it on the mummy's dress. The body quickly went up in flames and Buffy heaved the chest through the window into the backyard. "That's it?" Janice asked. Dawn nodded, she had grabbed hold of Buffy and wasn't about to let go for a while.

"Mom, I don't think I want another cedar chest." Janice's mother quietly agreed. That wasn't what she'd had in mind either.

"Where did you learn that?" Buffy quietly asked Dawn.

"I learned it from Dad and Dean." Dawn said. She hoped her mom wouldn't get mad at them.

"It's a good thing you listened."


	13. Chapter 13

It was a few weeks after Travers had left Sunnydale. The clerk who had given Giles the information on Travers' plans had also sent him a letter informing him of Travers demotion from Director of the Board to Supervisor of the Dangerous Relics Library. The news, along with the information that the new Director had put Faith's Cruciamentum on hold until after the current policies could be reevaluated had made for a wonderful celebration for Faith's birthday. Today there was another reason to celebrate as well because Xander had finally managed to get enough money together to move into his first real apartment. It was in the demon section of town, which was why the rent was so cheap, but Xander didn't mind. None of his neighbors were the kind of demons who ate humans and the apartment was very nice. Dean thought it said something about the man that he was perfectly fine with demons for neighbors as long as they weren't interested in eating him. When he said this to John, his dad reminded him that this was the man Dawn and everyone else had called a demon magnet and that Spike was moving with Xander. "The man voluntarily keeps blood in his fridge for the vampire he accidentally married." That really about summed Xander up for them. This was a man who really rolled with the punches. He had accepted reality and distilled his reactions down to the most basic; was it going to try to eat, rape, mutilate, or kill him? Then it needed to be killed. Anything else was met with a shrug and a live and let live policy.

The news about the marriage had been shared rather reluctantly with the rest of the group due to Anya's outing them to Willow. She had demanded an explanation for Anya wanting them to have sex, something Willow was personally against as she knew Xander wasn't gay. Rather than keep the information to herself, she had immediately asked the rest of the Scoobies for help in researching a way for Xander to get out of the marriage. It didn't take long for them to find out what Xander and Spike already knew. The marriage would only end when one of them was dead. Spike had then explained that there was a way to make a paper marriage out of it, and they had already taken the steps needed for that. Xander had also explained that he really didn't want to dust Spike for something that wasn't his fault because Spike hadn't put a hit or something out on him like he had on Buffy a few years ago. After a little gentle ribbing about Xander and his demon magnet status now being confirmed, they had dropped the subject altogether. Giles had been mentally kicking himself for not considering that possibility as being the reason Spike now considered the Scoobies his nest. He knew all about Xander's talent for getting into the most unlikely situations.

Everyone had pitched in to move them and between two slayers (and Spike after sundown) to move the heavy stuff, the move had only taken a single day. The apartment was nice. It had two bedrooms, one for each of them, a decent sized living room/kitchen combination and a single bathroom with laundry hookups. When everything had been set up and put away the Joyce, Giles and John had collapsed on the old couch and everyone else had taken positions on the floor or in the few chairs that Spike and Xander had. As the pizza was passed around, the conversations turned to the end of the summer and the resumption of school for those who would be attending this fall. "All I'm saying is that you should at least get your G.E.D., Faith." Willow was saying. "You aren't stupid. There is no reason you can't finish high school at least. Then you can get a job for when you aren't out slaying, or doing slaying related stuff. You can have a life outside that. You know, find something you like and go for it."

"I don't know, Red. What school would even take me? Even the G.E.D. people want you to show up at certain times, and there's no guarantee of that once I get back into slaying." Faith said, looking rather depressed at her prospects.

"So do it while you're benched." Dean said and passed her more pizza. "No reason why you can't do something while the doc says you're out of the game."

"He's right Faith." Wesley agreed. "There is no reason you shouldn't get at least a basic education. Having a life outside of slaying is important if you want to regain your balance. I think that part of the problem you had before was that you didn't have a life outside of being the slayer." Giles nodded in agreement and pointed at Wesley, being unable to say anything as he had a full mouth at the time. The sight made Faith giggle just slightly. She couldn't believe how relaxed the British men had become, not that they weren't still both very British and responsible and all, but they had both relaxed a lot from when she had known them before.

"I agree." Buffy said from her place resting against John's legs. "I'm going back to college in a few months, although I still haven't decided what I'm going to do for a major yet. I don't think I'll be going into psychology though." Those who remembered Maggie Walsh had a laugh over that.

"I'll be going too." Sam quietly announced. "We really need a doctor in this group, and as I've already finished the basic college courses so I can get started right away with UC Sunnydale's medical program."

"I thought you were going out for law school?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. This really wasn't the time or place for this discussion; on the other hand, everyone here had become a part of his family. "The reason I was going out for law school was because I wasn't able to do what I wanted thanks to the fight. Now that it's been resolved, I can go and do what I wanted to in the first place and become a doctor. That way we'll have more than Dad's medic training to fall back on." Dean looked at Sam and understood. There had been more than a few trips to the hospital where Sam had been the one holding the injured person, either Dean or their dad, together. The fear of losing the person you were trying to keep alive because you didn't know enough had been very hard on Sam over the years. It suddenly made Sam's insistence on education and going to college fall into place for him. It also made sense that he would have given it up rather than face people's injuries day after day, not knowing if his father and brother were in one piece or not.

Everyone was still, realizing that more was going on than was being said. "Stanford has a better program." John said carefully. He didn't want to start another fight with Sam, but he also didn't want him to throw away what he had worked so hard for.

"This way I can stay with my family and I'm not looking to become a plastic surgeon or something where prestige is important." Sam said looking straight at his father. "There are always scholarships for medical students. It's getting into the internship programs that are difficult."

Willow made a rude noise. "I can make sure you don't have to pay for school. The Watcher's Council has a fund for education and I don't even have to hack anything to get you on the list. The people who want to learn medicine and already know about the war are in short supply. Most of the Watcher families produce Watchers and other scholarly types. There aren't that many doctors of the medical type and those that are focus on demonic poisons and stuff. There really aren't any combat type doctors, so the funds just sit there for the most part."

"No way you wouldn't get into any program you wanted little brother." Dean saluted Sam with his beer.

"Is there anything close?" John asked, very much aware that he was the one who had told Sam that if he went off to school he couldn't come home.

"There is a teaching hospital in LA. I'd probably need someone to drive me there and pick me up because interns' shifts are so long." Sam offered, letting his dad know that he wanted to stay at home while he did this. He had his family back and didn't want to have to give it up again.

John nodded and quietly thought for a few minutes. "We're going to be staying for a while. No reason not to do it, if you're sure you don't want to go back to Stanford."

"I'm sure." Sam said and smiled, the breach from the long ago fight finally healed.

Quentin Travers locked himself in his bathroom and opened his bathrobe. No matter how he looked at it, the tattoo those people had put on him moved so he could read it. It was the slayers' fault. They should have died, both of them. The rage over his humiliation was growing stronger by the day. It didn't matter, he consoled himself. Soon they would all be dead. Each and every one of them would fall and then he would be avenged. He had found a way. All he had to do was turn over the information on where the potential slayers were to the Harbingers. They would take care of the rest. Then there would be no more slayers, and he would out live them all. He smiled into the mirror, not caring about the madness that was grinning back.

Dean walked into his room, surprisingly happy. His father and brother had finally come to an understanding. He shook his head. It was so hard to believe those four years of silence and years before that of bickering were caused by Sam's wanting to be their family doctor. Of course, he also had wanted them to settle down into one place, stop with the cons, and a lot of other things, but wanting to go to school to be a doctor? It just blew his mind. He knew Sam had the brains for it, no problem. But he had never even caught a glimpse of Sam's ambition. But then by the time Sam had probably decided he'd been complaining about the hunting and other stuff for so long, who would have guessed? He had certainly never told Dean. The closest he had ever come was wishing out loud that he could do something when they were stuck in that ER in Chicago.

Dean's internal musings stopped short when he saw what was on his bed, an envelope and a small package. He picked up the envelope first. Inside was the paperwork for a bank account. Dean sensed Willow's hacking at work due to the large amount of money the paperwork said was in it. Not only would neither one of the hackers steal money from anyone but the Watcher's Council, they only did it to pay for things that the Council should have been paying for already, and Willow was needed to get past the magical protections on the accounts. Sure enough, when he opened the note that accompanied the paperwork, he found not only his brother's handwriting, but also Willow's. 'As you have appointed yourself the personal chief of the Slayer, Faith, this account is to ensure that you have everything you need to supply her with whatever food she needs.' 'This should help with your mother hening, jerk.' Dean snorted, the last remark was so typical of Sam, was it his fault the kid needed looking after?

He put down the paperwork and picked up the box. He wondered what else Sam had gotten him. When he opened it, his jaw dropped in shock. This was sooo not cool! He burst out of his room and stormed down the hall to the kitchen. "SAM!" He yelled.

"What?" Sam asked. Dean was freaking out and waving a box around that he had never seen before.

"That's not cool! I don't need the help! That is just so low!" Dean continued to sputter at Sam. Sam didn't know what his brother was talking about, but he was pretty sure it had something to do with the box Dean was waving around.

Finally having enough, Sam grabbed the box out of Dean's hands. "Give me that you jerk. What's in it any way?" He opened it just as his words hit Dean's brain and Dean realized that it hadn't been from his brother. He tried to get it away from Sam but Sam's extra height made all the difference. Sam stared in shock at the contents when he finally got it open. The vibrator was bad enough, but the 40 pack of batteries to go with it was more than he could take. It was only as he fell down laughing that Dean finally managed to snatch the box out of his hands. Who had done this? Dean wondered. It hadn't been there when they'd left, and no one had breached the wards while they had been gone. If it wasn't Sam that only left… Dean turned around and looked at his father, who had been the last one out of the apartment that morning. John's smirk was the only answer Dean needed. He hung his head in defeat. There was no doubt about it, when it came to practical jokes, his dad was the master. He was thoroughly paid back for the slayer care kit he had made up for his dad. He shuffled off to his room.

The advance scout was called James. He looked like a clean cut military recruit, dressed in kaki pants and a button up shirt. He had nothing but contempt for the humans surrounding him. The safety of his clan was on the line and nothing was going to get in his way. Moving unobtrusively around the town, he made note of the businesses that catered to demons and the most likely places where the clan could gather in safety. Even a hellmouth was no guarantee of the safety for the clan. There were warriors here beyond the ones they were hunting. That the hunter had become a seer years ago was bad enough, but the baby the clan had tried to kill had become one as well in the last year. Now a third child was born of the line with power. She was most likely a seer as well, although their own seer had not said. She never did. Three children of the line, all with power, all within the same family, all of an age to take up arms. The hunter of course, had taken up the fight years ago, soon after they had failed to kill the seer baby. That child had taken the life of an ally of the clan years before he had reached even the beginnings of manhood. And now the seer had said that the last child had defeated her first foe. If they did not kill them all, even the powerless brother, the clan would be destroyed. The prophecy was clear on that point. And it was happening now. Before the snow fell at the clan house, all of their fates would be decided.


	14. Chapter 14

Elizabeth Giles walked into the Winchester garage and was confronted with a rather yummy sight. Both John and Dean were out of their usual layers of t-shirts and flannel and had stripped down to a single t-shirt and jeans, rather tight jeans in Dean's case. Too bad they were both involved with the current slayers, she wouldn't mind getting involved with either of the grease smudged men. However, as they were involved and she wasn't suicidal, she would just have to keep her thoughts to herself. "Dean, might I have a word with you?"

"Sure, just give me a minute." Dean waved at her. He liked Giles' cousin. She had really given Willow a talking too about manners that no one had been brave enough to do. He sure hadn't. Willow really hadn't needed to share the information on Spike and Xander being married; there was nothing that could be done about the situation that either of them hadn't already considered. Dean knew just how easily either of them could have killed the other to get out of the marriage, either with a stake or a by hiring a hit. If they wanted to live with it, that was their business and no one else's. Dean wiped his face off and gestured her towards Sam's office. Sam was currently over at the college campus getting stuff sorted out. What sort of stuff, Dean wasn't sure, but he did know it would take a while. "What's up Elizabeth?"

"Dean, I've sorted out where the girls are magically, but you've never come to see me about getting lessons and I was wondering why. Rupert told me a little about your abilities." Elizabeth asked. She was curious as to why none of the Winchester men had asked for help. There wasn't much that could be done to teach a seer, of course, but Dean really should have come to her before this.

Dean froze. "I didn't know there was anything you could do." He said quietly. He looked at his gloved hands.

Elizabeth was appalled. No one had even thought to tell this young man that he could train his gift? "Why didn't anyone tell you about training?"

"No one has any idea what exactly it is I've got, so Sam got me the gloves. Tara helped me figure out that a salt water bath would clean stuff off so I could handle whatever I could wash, but I thought that was the best anyone could do for me." Dean shrugged. He looked up at Elizabeth. "Don't get mad at them. We got a line on the demon that my family has been hunting for the last 22 years, and Sammy's been concentrating his research on that." Elizabeth gasped. Even among Watchers and other's who fought against the darkness that was far longer than she'd ever heard of one human family tracking a demon. "We finally found out which demon clan it belongs to. It killed my mom when I was four and Sammy was only six months. Last November it killed Sammy's girlfriend. He was planning on asking her to marry him."

"That's incredible! I've heard of demons taking a dislike to certain kinds of humans and having it last for centuries; but never anything this long from the human side of the equation." Elizabeth paused to consider the determination, or obsession required to pursue an adversary for that length of time. Yes, she could see why the family would have neglected to do further research into Dean's abilities. She didn't think that Dean was the sort who would have encouraged any investigation either. "Well, I can see where that is a priority. Are you close?"

"Sammy thinks he's found a copy of the prophecy that got the creeps on our tails in the first place. He's working on a translation right now. Dad's working with Giles on figuring out where the clan is and they've got it narrowed down to a tri-state area." Dean beamed with pride over his father and brother's accomplishments. "They really shouldn't have declared war on us. We're a deadly bunch, just like the rifle." Elizabeth thought that must be the family motto from the way Dean said it. She could also see the truth in it. They were deadly these Winchesters, even right down to little Dawn. She had seen Dawn at practice with her throwing knives when she had come to collect her for the evaluation of her magic. Adding her deadly accuracy after just a short time of learning to use them with her vast potential for magic and she was easily a match for either of her parents.

"Well, I certainly can understand that. Now, there is something I can do for you. Your abilities are mostly mental, but they are also partially magical, just like your father and brother's. Have you read any of the Valdamar Books? They are a fantasy series." Dean shook his head. "That's all right. I've just found that they provide a very good mental image of what we are about to do and I love the series." She sat down on the floor and gestured for Dean to sit in front of her. "Now I'm going to use my magic to watch what you do. There is no right or wrong here. You need to be able to do what feels right for you and what works for the other students I've taught probably won't for you."

"Why not?" Dean asked warily.

Elizabeth smiled. "Because they don't have your background, Dean. Simply because they know what is out there doesn't mean that they react to it the same way you do. Have you ever met any professional hunters before?"

Dean snorted. "If you're talking about those idiots who make documentaries on ghosts, yeah I've met some. I've also grown up around hunters, mercenaries, preachers and priests, the whole nine yards."

"And they all react differently to the same situations. It is the same way with magic and psychic abilities. What is up here," she tapped the side of Dean's forehead, "determines what you will do and how you will be able to do it." She activated her magical sight and 'looked' at Dean. "Now, see if you can find your center."

Dean just gave her an odd look and shifted his body. Elizabeth was amazed. With just a small shift, Dean had perfectly centered himself. No one she had taught had ever been able to do that before. "How did you do that?" She asked suspiciously.

Dean snorted. "I've studied martial arts for over twenty years. Finding your center is a basic concept. I can't remember the last time I had to think about it."

"Well, when you centered your body, you also centered your mind. That isn't what usually happens. Remember what I just said about what works for most of my students not working for you? You just jumped ahead about six full weeks of lessons. Do you meditate?"

"Only when I sharpen my knives." Dean was firm about that. He was definitely going with the knives. No stupid girly chanting for him.

"Ok," she said. "I can work with that. Now, picture in your mind something connected with the earth. Nothing nasty either, Dean." She wagged her finger at him. Normally she would have told him to make sure it was a living connection rather than a mechanical one, but seeing as how he had already surprised her, she didn't want to give him any ideas. Dean smirked, but obediently closed his eyes and thought. A picture sprang to his mind of this natural bridge he had once seen. Elizabeth watched in amazement as she watched the magical portion of his abilities sink into the ground below him and establish a strong link with the earth. Whatever his image was it was working. "Good. Now, slowly, see if you can stand up while holding the image in your mind."

"Shit!" It should have been easy, but there was something that kept getting away from him every time he moved.

"Don't worry Dean; you're not doing something simple." She reassured him. "What you are doing is forming a connection between yourself and the earth. Without that connection, you cannot control your abilities. So I want you to practice keeping that connection while moving. When you can do that then come and tell me and we'll go on to the next lesson. Keep up your meditation too."

"Ok." Dean was willing to do whatever it took to get his life back, within reason of course. Sharpening his knives and thinking about that stone bridge wasn't that hard. He thought he could figure out how to keep the connection thing and move pretty quick. "Thank you, Elizabeth."

"That's what I'm here for." With a wave Elizabeth left the garage.

"What's up?" John asked, curious as to the reason for Elizabeth's visit.

"She's got some stuff to teach me like she does Dawn. It isn't really magic, more like the focusing your mind and spirit stuff that Sensei was trying to teach us years ago. Elizabeth said some of the stuff he taught me shaved about six weeks off of the lessons she was planning on giving me." John nodded. Sensei was the name the others from Pastor Jim's special flock had given to the tiny little martial arts master who willingly taught any who would take a stand against the darkness. Dean and Sam had been his youngest students. Dean had also been his most difficult as he had been a very active child who had a horror of being still.

John smirked. "I told you that stuff would come in handy." It had been very useful for him. It hadn't reduced or clarified the nightmares, but it had allowed John to put his own reactions aside so he could analyze the dreams better. Maybe he should talk to Sam about using Sensei's teachings to help with the nightmares. Nothing helped with the visions. They still hit like a sledgehammer and left you feeling like a hung-over drunk.

"Yeah, yeah, we still got an engine to pull Dad."

Sam couldn't believe he'd gotten so lucky. Everything else with the Jekfoontar clan had been one step forward and two steps back it seemed like for as long as he could remember. But as he was working on getting his credits transferred from Stanford to UC Sunnydale, the secretary had been trying to get him to take ancient languages with her. She'd been gushing about the languages the teacher knew and that had been when Sam had found out about it. The languages teacher was fluent in the same language that the prophecy was written in.

After a quick check with Giles over how to identify a member of the Jekfoontar clan, (he was taking no chances after Meg) Sam was now consulting with the teacher.

"This is the best I can do:

The warrior shall sire a line and the line shall produce a hunter. To this hunter's line will be born three children of power. The hunter will be a seer and seer will be a hunter. The warrior and the witch will follow. When the family is united and all take up arms against the darkness, then comes the time of danger for the something (Jekfoontar) clan. The warrior will destroy the clan link. Unless all are destroyed, the clan will fall.

"I don't know what it means, but this language was often used for obscure prophecies of the nastier sort. It was almost like whoever was writing them actually wanted the terrible things they wrote about to happen. Fortunately most of the so-called prophecies never came true. Parts of them did however, and that is the really interesting thing about this language. There is very little written in it other than these prophecies and frankly some scholars argue about whether it is a language or a code. It is a fascinating puzzle. Thank you for bringing me the sample. It was well worth the trade."

"No, thank you." Sam said. He hated using people like this, but at least she thought she was getting a good deal out of her afternoon's work. All he needed was the translation, he didn't need the actual copy he'd found. "That thing has just been driving me nuts ever since I found it. Not that it makes any sense of course, but just not being able to read it was driving me mad."

"I fully understand." The teacher agreed. He smiled at the teacher and left after shaking her hand. He had to get the translation back to the others.

Meg watched Sam from across the distance of the campus grounds. He was so weak. He wasn't even able to see her for what she really was. He had even thought he had sneaked up on her in Chicago. He was just the way she liked her humans, strong enough to have fun with and weak enough to crush whenever she wanted. She was so glad her father had allowed her to watch and play with this one. He wanted the father of course, but she and her brother would be rewarded with the boys to play with. So Sam was settling in here at school, rather than go back to Stanford. He's pitiful, she thought. He can't even stand to go back to the same town, although I should be grateful that he doesn't have his father's drive. The hunter has cost us so much in the way of allies over the years. He would pay for that. She wondered who among the clan would win the right to have the daughter.

Buffy and Dawn were getting cones at the ice cream shop, having completed buying Dawn a new wardrobe both as a reward for saving the slumber party a short time back and because she had grown another half inch over the summer. "Faith shouldn't try to get her GED, Buffy. It's too hard. The lady I talked too told me that even most kids who just finished high school can't do it. That's not fair to her. All I'm saying is that she should do the home school thing with me." Dawn held the door for Buffy and then followed her outside. "She never finished, and nobody is going to ask any questions because they won't be seeing her. It'll just be the two of us unless we take some courses at the high school. Willow said we might take a course a year or something for the science requirements because we don't have the lab equipment. I'm probably right at the point where she dropped out to start slaying."

Buffy smiled. "You just don't want me following you to the high school."

"That too," Dawn agreed. It was the only way any of her family was going to let her go unescorted to the high school. She wouldn't mind so much if she didn't know that having any of them there, male or female would put a complete stop to any potential social life she might have. Having any of her family giving a potential boyfriend the shovel speech and she was rather sure that the Winchester version would include a more frightening weapon of some sort, did not thrill her. Just as she was contemplating the death of a romance that hadn't even hit the first sight stage, they were attacked.

They might have looked human, but they were sending Buffy's spidey sense into overdrive. If there had been more than two of them, they probably would have won, as it was, Buffy could barely hold them off. Dawn had thrown both of her knives, but neither of them had any effect. The holy water squirt gun did, but only enough to drive the demons back. Thanking every PTB she'd ever heard of that they'd already dropped the bags of clothes off at Joyce's art gallery, Buffy broke free of the demon that had her by the arm and pulled Dawn away from the other. With a quick shove she managed to push one of them into a dumpster, and as she turned to deal with the other one, Dawn pulled the top down and locked it. Seeing that the demon couldn't get out, Buffy began to beat the second demon back, steering it with kicks and punches until she could repeat the same trap with it. After Dawn locked the second demon into the second dumpster they both ran for the Magic Box.


	15. Chapter 15

Buffy rushed into the Magic Box, pulling Dawn behind her. "Demons, two of them, jumped us outside of the ice cream shop. They looked human, Giles." Buffy said as she got a gasping Dawn into a chair. Elizabeth held Dawn's hand while Buffy went looking for the first aid kit.

"They must be members of the Jekfoontar clan." Giles said grimly. "Sam has just had the prophecy translated. He and the others are on their way here. What can you tell me about the demons that attacked you?"

"What does the damn thing say?" Buffy demanded. She hated prophecies. They always brought death and destruction, and it was usually hers. Having a prophecy about her child was enough to send her into orbit. She had known that there was a possibility that Dawn was mentioned in this one, but she still hoped it was about Sam or Dean rather than Dawn. The last one had been bad enough.

"I don't know. Sam didn't want to tell me over the phone. It is a reasonable precaution. The Jekfoontar clan has been known to use technology as well as magic, and John has said that they've monitored his phone calls before."

Buffy was digging through the first aid kit for the bruise ointment that Tara made. They always kept plenty on hand. She didn't need any of course with her slayer healing, but she was sure that Dawn had a few bruises from being grabbed. "They were very strong, like vampires. Dawn threw both of her knives and hit them; one in the throat and another in the eye. Giles, it didn't even faze them. Holy water held them off, but didn't do much more than that. We ended up locking them in a couple of dumpsters. How do I kill them?" She started applying the ointment to Dawn's arm.

Giles sighed. He really didn't want to have to answer that question. He looked up as the shop bell rang. Wesley and Faith walked in, followed by Joyce, Willow and Tara. "We need to wait for Sam, John and Dean and I'd really rather not repeat myself." Buffy nodded. She didn't like it, but it made sense. It didn't take long for John and Dean to show up with Sam. They had gone to the college to pick him up.

Everyone gathered around the research table, either sitting in the chairs or leaning against the wall. "I accidentally found a professor over at the college who is fluent in the language the prophecy is written in. She traded me a translation for my copy of the prophecy. I have it copied in my notes, and she wasn't a demon, so I went ahead with the trade." Sam pulled out his notes. Dean and John pulled out their journals; this was something that had to be recorded. "The warrior shall sire a line, and the line shall produce a hunter. To this hunter's line will be born three children of power. The hunter will be a seer and the seer will be a hunter. The warrior and the witch will follow. When the family is united, and all take arms against the darkness, then comes the time of danger for the Jekfoontar clan. The warrior will destroy the clan link. Unless all are destroyed, the clan will fall." Sam paused, "This is the best translation I could get."

"The hunter must be Dad. But I don't get this whole, seer/hunter, hunter/seer thing." Dean said, rereading what he written down.

"It's not referring to one person," Willow exclaimed after looking at it for a minute. "It means both John and Sam. John is a hunter who is also a seer and Sam is a seer who is also a hunter. Dean, you must be the warrior and Dawn must be the witch."

"That means that Dean is the focus of the prophecy." Giles said thoughtfully. "But how is he going to destroy the clan's link? What link is the prophecy referring too?"

"Anya said that the prophecy talked about a child of power that was going to destroy a statue that held the clan together. That statue is probably the clan link." John said, referring back to his own notes.

"The warrior and the witch follow must mean that Dean and I do what the two of you say. That makes sense because Dad is Dad and we all do what he says and Sam is research and vision guy so we do what he says too." Dawn said. She looked over the rest of the prophecy. "We are united because all of us are here and we're sticking together. I don't get all taking arms against the darkness though."

"I do." Buffy said. "Dawn you killed your first ghost and most of the jobs the guys do is against ghosts of one sort or another rather than demons and vampires like I do. That means that you have taken up fighting the darkness just like the rest of us. That explains why we got attacked. The prophecy is taking place right now. Stupid thing," she muttered. Giles patted her on the shoulder. He understood her revulsion for prophecies considering how her first experience with one had killed her.

"You were attacked!" John jumped on the information.

"Yeah, a couple of a these demons jumped me and Dawn after we left the ice cream shop. Giles, you said you were going to tell me how to kill them when they got here." She pointed at John who was currently running his hands over Dawn in an effort to find any injuries.

"You mean they aren't dead? What happened to them?" John growled.

"Calm down, John. We aren't hurt and we locked them up in a couple of dumpsters. They should still be there. We'll deal with them when Giles tells us how." Buffy turned to Giles expectantly. John turned to face him as well. Dean and Sam were waiting like hounds about to be unleashed for a hunt.

"Unfortunately, I've yet to come up with a way to kill them. They have no weakness other than the clan link that I can find. Destroy the link and destroy the clan, as the prophecy says. Nothing seems to be able to kill them on an individual basis."

"Is this another deal like the Judge? No weapon forged by man, or something? Cause we got around that one." Willow said.

"It is somewhat similar, but they seem to be immune to any sort of weapon other than a few holy items, and even those only give them minor difficulties." Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them in agitation.

"Oh, shit." Sam and Dean said in unison. "That means that Meg is still out there." Dean continued.

"Meg?" Faith asked. She liked Dean. He was always nice to her and not in a get in her pants kind of way, which is what she had been expecting from the way he flirted with her. She wondered what the demon girl had done to him.

"Meg Masters, we dropped her out a seven story window onto the street. No wonder the damned daevas still went after us." Dean shook his head. "I thought for sure we got her."

Sam shook his head. "She probably had a necklace like Roy's wife had to control the Reaper."

John looked a little guilty to Buffy's eyes. She wondered what the story there was. "What kind of holy objects?" John asked, getting his mind off the memory of his oldest son's face as he was dying of a weakened heart. The boys didn't know that he was the one who sent them the information on Roy through Joshua, and he didn't want them to know. He would take the memory of that boy's undeserved death to his grave, but God help him he'd do it again in a heartbeat if it meant that his boy would live.

"Holy water of course, as Buffy and Dawn discovered. Dawn, by the way, I'm very proud to see that you were carrying the water pistol Xander gave you."

Dawn looked up and showed Giles it was empty. "It burned them, but more like acid than actual burning like it does for a vampire. My cross didn't do anything."

"That's because it isn't blessed. It wouldn't have done any better than the holy water though. It's damned frustrating. I just can't find any other weakness at all." Giles slammed his hand down on the table in frustration.

Dean and Sam looked at each other, each seeing Dawn's words echo through the other's minds. A swift nod and they both turned to John. John smiled at his boys. He knew what they were thinking. The same thing had gone through his mind as well. Even as sensitive as Sam was towards humans, he'd never had that problem with demons, and Dean would really enjoy some payback. "They tried to hurt your sister, boys. Let's go show them what we think of that. Buffy, would you care to join us?" John asked offering her his hand to help her out of her chair.

"HEY!" Dawn exclaimed. "What about me? I want my knives back."

A resounding "NO!" came from around the room. "You'll get your knives back, Dawn." John tried to console her. "And if you struck in good places, I'll even start you on another weapon. Dean says you're getting good with maintenance for the shotguns." Dawn pouted unappeased.

"There is something else to consider Dawn." Elizabeth said firmly. "With the prophecy being one that we want to have come true, we need to have you learn all the spells that you can master. I don't think it will be more than two or at most three, but we need to arm you as much as we can. I think that the prophecy says you will have to be there when Dean does his part. If that's true, you may be the only witch there. You have an enormous power base to work with. In your hands even the simplest spells can be extremely effective. But you won't be able to do anything at all if you don't start working on it right now." Elizabeth gestured to the workout room in the back. Dawn looked around trying to find someone who would let her in on whatever it was they were going to do to the demons. No one relented in the slightest. She nodded her head reluctantly at Elizabeth and followed her into the back room. It wasn't that she didn't want to learn to use her magic; it was more that she wanted a piece of the demons that had jumped them.

Buffy led John and the boys back to where she had left the demons. The others went back to what they had been doing before, except for Faith. Wesley sent her to inform Xander of the meetings revelations as he had been unable to leave work. The demons were still in the dumpsters, although the dumpsters had taken quite a beating from the inside. Sam picked the lock on one of the dumpsters and Buffy hauled the demon out by the back of his jacket. As she did, Dean and John grabbed its arms and held on for dear life as she got it the rest of the way out. She threw it to the ground and then broke its back, hoping that would keep it from being able to move its legs. That didn't work very well. The demon was still able to move although not as well as if it had not taken any damage. Then she broke its neck, while Sam, Dean, and John all sat, or rather sprawled over its body; trying to control it the way that the stupid idiot who played with crocodiles piled his team on the crocodiles to move them. That worked a little bit better. The demon was cursing them out, calling John, 'Hunter' and saying how the clan was going to burn them all alive. Dean, being the closest to the demons face, smirked at it while helping Buffy to force its arm up above its head. Then, while they were holding it down, Buffy cut the hand off with a machete from the Impala's trunk. Watching it, they realized their guess was correct as it still continued to grasp at the ground. The rest of the demon's body soon followed, separated into the major parts. Then each part was placed in garbage bags to wait for the rest of its disposal.

The second demon wasn't so lucky. Although its legs and arms were cut off at the elbows and knees, the rest of its body was kept intact. Then it was tortured with holy water by John while Buffy joined Dean and Sam in holding it down. Not one of them felt the slightest bit of remorse. This demon had tried to kill Dawn. If it had only gone after Buffy, that would have been different as far as she was concerned. She was a vampire slayer after all, and being attacked by demons was just a normal part of her day. Dawn, however, was an entirely different matter. John and the boys didn't make any distinctions at all. This demon came from the same clan as the one who had killed both Mary and Jess and therefore would get nothing but their hatred. It took some time and some creative uses of holy water for the demon to finally break. There was a price on Dawn's head. The first demon to capture her and bring her back to the head of the clan would get to keep her for themselves as a pet as long as they killed her within a few days. The hunter and his boys had already been chosen by the head of the clan and his two heirs. The clan house was located in Cleveland, close to the hellmouth there. That was where the clan's treasures were kept. Most of the clan was either here or on their way in an attempt to kill them and stop the prophecy. With that information, they stopped torturing it and dismembered it as they had the other demon.

A beat cop had started to walk down the alley when they were in the process of cutting the demon's head off, but when he saw what was going on, he merely tipped his uniform hat to Buffy and turned and walked away. It looked like she and her friends had things under control. Besides, if she was disposing of something that looked like a human, but obviously wasn't since the parts were still moving, he wasn't going to interfere. It was just one more evil thing that he didn't have to deal with, which was just fine with him. He had a hard enough time with the drunks and other human criminals. He didn't want to have to deal with anything that looked human enough that he couldn't tell the difference.

Faith passed the cop on her way back to the Magic Box and peeked into the alley out of curiosity. She wished she hadn't done so when she saw what Buffy was doing. Watching the others wasn't as upsetting, but Buffy was a slayer, and these demons looked way to human for her stomach and nerves. The only thing that kept her from throwing up was the fact that she knew they were demons because the severed body parts were still moving. Her inner slayer was urging her to get in there and chop them up with Buffy, and the knowledge of what these creeps had tried to do to Dawn, who was just an innocent little kid, was backing her up. But the fact that they looked so human scared her. Dean looked up and saw her backing away from the alley. He went after her, trying to calm her down. This didn't go over well with Faith.

"I know they're demons, dipshit! I ain't stupid!" She shoved him away from her, trying hard not to hurt him, only to find that he didn't move at all.

"I'm not saying you are." Dean said, gesturing with his hands only to find Faith turning around and punching the wall behind her. At least if she broke her hand, it should heal fast, he thought to himself. "Let me see that."

"What is wrong with you!" Faith finally broke at this example of the kindness Dean was showing her. He fed her, he flirted with her, he helped Wes with her training, and he walked her to her appointments with her shrink, what did he want from her?

"I don't like to see you hurt." Dean said, hoping she would leave it at that.

"You stupid jerk!" This time she put some force behind her push, although she still couldn't bring herself to hit him. "What the hell does it matter if I get hurt?" She stormed off as soon as his butt hit the ground.

Buffy was there to help him up. "She's going back to the Magic Box. Let her talk to Wes first. He'll calm her down. I think you scared her a little."

Dean looked a little lost. "How did I scare her? I can understand her getting freaked out over those bastards, but how could I have scared her?"

"You were nice and you were worried about her. She hasn't had the best luck with guys before." Buffy left it at that. If Faith wanted to share her dating history with Dean later it would be her call. She patted Dean on the shoulder. "The demons are bagged up and your dad has an idea to deal with the parts. Why don't you go help him with that and I'll go and see what I can do at the Magic Box?" He walked back to the alley looking so much like a kicked puppy that Buffy's heart went out to him. It looked like he had fallen hard for the dark slayer. She smiled, when they got through Faith's fear of good men, they were going to make the perfect couple.


	16. Chapter 16

Sam was worried about Dean. His big brother should have been over the moon at the thought that he was going to be the one to kill the demon clan and avenge their family. Instead, he was walking around like he'd had his heart cut out. He hadn't even smiled when they had dumped the demon body parts into steel drums filled with holy water, something that should have at least made him grin. After about an hour or so John had enough and told Dean he was to work on the exercises Elizabeth had given him and to do whatever else it took to get his head out of his ass. His abilities were probably going to be needed. They didn't have time for Dean to not be on top of his game right now. The demon clan was too close and they were going after Dawn. John hoped that triggering Dean's highly developed big brother instincts would help, but it didn't really. Dean had simply nodded his head and went to get his knife sharpening kit. The whole thing just made Sam worry even more. It was obvious that whatever was bothering Dean was important, and that it involved Dean's emotions. That was always the one thing that was harder to drag out of Dean than anything else. Finally he couldn't take anymore and went into the break room where Dean was sitting on the floor honing his knives. "Are you going to tell me what has gotten you so down or am I going to have to blackmail it out of you?" He asked, sitting down next to his brother.

"You don't have anything on me big enough for this little brother." Dean said. Sam saw that he wasn't even trying to get into the spirit of their usual bickering.

"Not even the package that Dad gave you?" Sam asked, knowing that if Dean said yes to that he was in big trouble.

Dean snorted. "It wouldn't make a difference if you did. I screwed up somehow."

"With Faith?" Sam asked quietly. He knew how hard losing Cassie was on Dean. He hoped it wasn't that serious with Faith.

"Buffy said I scared her. I don't know how could I have scared her Sam? I wasn't doing anything. I tried to tell her we weren't cutting up humans and she called me a few names. That I understood, you know? Calling me an idiot and saying that she knew they weren't is just fine. But then she punched the wall, and I just wanted to see if she broke anything. How could that have scared her? You have to make sure the bone is straight or it'll heal crooked. I wasn't doing anything but being a gentleman, I swear!" Dean threw the knife he was holding into the wall.

"What else did Buffy say?" Sam asked hoping that she had left him a clue in what she had told his brother.

"Just that Faith hasn't had the best luck with guys before. And that it was because I was being nice." He wasn't going to add that he'd been worried. He was sure it was written all over his face for his brother to read, but that didn't mean he had to admit it.

"Ah," Sam said wisely. "I've known girls like that. You probably have too; you just didn't know it at the time because they were comfortable with you trying to pick them up. You never try to hide the fact that you're just out for a good time when you do that. I think that Faith is more used to trying to peel a guys hands off of her. She probably had a few very bad experiences and the so called nice ones were the ones that hurt the worst. Either that or there just weren't any nice ones at all. Think about it. You know that some of the places where we stayed as kids Dad was the only decent man around. More than one woman was scared of him until they figured out that he wasn't interested in them as anything but potential babysitters. That was when he was when he was sure it was safe enough for us to have babysitters. A woman who grows up in that sort of place doesn't really understand that there are decent men out there that would be interested in them. If a man is interested, he has to be a jerk or a womanizer or a wife beater waiting to happen. They'd rather see what's wrong with a guy up front. Knowing that makes her feel safe. She doesn't want to jump into the pool without knowing what's at the bottom. Not being able to see anything bad is just going to freak her out, because she's convinced that for you to be interested in her, there has to be something wrong with you."

Dean stopped and thought about what his little brother was saying. "Aw, hell! She asked me why it mattered if she got hurt."

"Yeah, that sounds typical, especially when you think about her getting out of jail like she did. I had a friend in one of my classes go through that. After watching him struggle I've figured out that the only thing you can do is be patient with her and tough it out. I know you can do tough. You were the one who was always getting in between Dad and me when we'd get going, and there isn't anything tougher than that. Dad is right about one thing though, you do need to practice. This whole situation is probably why you have this power and not something that is more like the rest of the family. So you really do need to be able to use it." Sam said quietly, not wanting Dean to think that he was ganging up on him.

Dean nodded and went to retrieve his knife. They were right; he needed to get his head out of his ass. It wasn't his fault he had scared Faith. He was probably going to be doing that a lot. As long as he stayed steady, he'd be able to win the girl. Right now he needed to be sure he was going to be able to win the fight. And as much as he hated talking about stuff, he needed his little brother's help to get this one done. He just couldn't seem to manage to move while he was concentrating on the earth connection. He set the sharpening kit aside and told Sam about the exercise that Elizabeth had told him to do.

"Hmmm, you see a stone bridge? Is it that one out by Carver's creek where we hunted that battlefield ghost?" Dean nodded, wondering where Sam was going with this. "Well, wasn't there some kind of plants on that bridge? Didn't they move?"

Dean stared at his little brother. "Ok, either you really are a genius, or I'm an idiot." When Sam went to open his mouth, Dean pointed his finger at him, "Don't answer that."

Sam laughed and swatted his shoulder as he got up and left the room. He didn't think his brother needed anymore help. John looked up from where he was changing a tire and sighed in relief when Sam nodded. Sam didn't have to see the look on his dad's face to know that his dad had been worried about Dean. They might not be really good at communicating with each other, but there was no doubt at all that they loved each other. He collected the money from the customer as John handed over his keys. When the customer took off with the car, John asked Sam how Dean was.

"He was having a little slayer trouble, his slayer, not yours." Sam smirked at the look on John's face. "I think I've talked him down from his freak out over that. He was sure he'd FUBAR'd as badly as you had with Buffy. I think he's over that now and he's working on the moving part that Elizabeth want him to master before she teaches him anything else."

"Hope that what ever she's teaching him works. These demons are tough SOB's. We'll need every edge we can get." Sam nodded. "What should we take with us?" John was sure that Sam had been thinking about what would be effective against the demons. One thing he and Sam had eventually agreed on was that Sam really was good at picking out just what weapons would be needed on what job.

Sam wanted to get his reasons across to his dad before he told him which weapons would be best to use. He still wasn't sure his dad would listen otherwise. "We only have one chance at this. If we can't get to the clan house before they realize we've gone, we've lost our advantage. We need to make sure that they don't know that we have the information we need to take them out. We have to distract them here and now. It'll be important to keep a low profile. That means we can't arm up the way we usually would. We can't bring in Caleb or anyone else. They're going to be watching for that. We have to use who and what we have here. Any demon we meet is going to have to be chopped up, that's all there is to it, so we'll need blades. We'll also need consecrated iron rounds that should give the demons fits. They should work better than the holy water to incapacitate them at least. We should still take holy water pistols with us for when we run out of rounds." Sam considered the weaponry that they normally had on hand. "I think that's all that'll be effective. Dean's abilities and Dawn's magic will have to make up for the rest."

John nodded and looked up as Dean shakily walked out of the break room. "Dean?" he asked in concern.

"I got it Dad!" Dean grinned in triumph. He was very wobbly and he wasn't standing very straight, but he was moving. "It's like trying to walk on a tightrope when you're drunk. If I can stay centered while I move I can do it, but it's hard to keep my grasp on the damn connection and stay centered. I'm going out back to work on some fighting forms. Those should be easier for me to handle staying centered." Both John and Sam watched as Dean walked out the back door.

"Suddenly, I'm not so worried about us being ready in time." John said with a smile. "Consecrated iron rounds, huh? I've got a bunch left over from a hunt a while back. They should be upstairs. I've got a bunch of shot too. I wonder if regular ammo will do if it's blessed. We can double or triple our ammo if that would work." Sam nodded, deep in thought. There was something else that occurred to him. Meg had said that she did what she did for the same reasons that he did; love and loyalty. That must mean that she was close to the clan leader, possibly even one of his heirs. That would explain why she had been dogging him and Dean. It would also mean that she was around here somewhere.

"Dad, I'm going to go and check on Dawn's progress with Elizabeth. I've got an idea on how to test your blessed regular rounds theory, and there's an idea I want to run past Elizabeth." John Ok'd it and sent Sam off with his truck. Normally, Sam would have taken the Impala, but Dean had gotten even more possessive, if it was at all possible, over his car since he found out that she could feel things. On the way to the Magic Box, Sam kept his eyes and his extra senses open, maybe he'd be able to sense Meg the way he'd sensed the poltergeist back at their old house. He wasn't sure it would work, but it was worth a shot anyway.

It wasn't long before he got the hang of it. There was something out there that made his skin crawl, but it didn't feel like the demons he'd come across before. As he swung by the construction site where Xander was working, it intensified and Sam realized that it was the hellmouth itself he could feel. That made sense, he'd been feeling it all along, and he just hadn't known what it was. It also made sense that he would be able to feel it; it was the strongest of all seven hellmouths around the world after all, and the evil it put out had to be strong as well. Once Sam had identified the feeling, he pushed it to the back of his mind as background noise. There she was, he thought. He could feel the evil oozing out of her, and it drew his gaze. She was watching him. He moved his eyes on, not letting them rest on her, but the glimpse he'd had was enough. It was Meg and she was following him. Good, he smiled nastily. She was going to pay for what she had done to him and his brother. Tying them up and cutting them for her pleasure was bad enough. But she had separated them from their father, when they had been so scared for so long that he was dead, no matter how much Dean had denied both his fear and their father's probable dead state. She was going to pay for that. It was also time he got to pay the clan back for taking Jess away from him. The pain that came to his chest whenever he thought about Jess was weaker now, but he didn't think the guilt would ever leave him. Oh god, why hadn't he listened to the nightmares? Why hadn't he realized that it wasn't just worry over asking her to marry him? He blinked hard as tears swam in his eyes. They had to pay, and Meg was just the one take it for them.

He pulled the truck into a parking space and parked, taking a few minutes to get himself under control. He couldn't let the others see him upset. They would start asking questions and he couldn't handle that right now. Right now he had to concentrate on his plan to catch Meg. He got out of the truck and jogged into the Magic Box. He walked up to Giles who was manning the counter. "Hey, Giles, would you look behind me and see if you can spot a blond girl with short hair? She's one of the demons and she's stalking me."

Giles looked behind Sam, doing his best not to be seen doing it and saw the girl he was talking about. "Good Lord! Could she be any more obvious?" He gestured to the back room. "Wes, Faith and Buffy are back there, but don't interrupt Elizabeth and Dawn. They're doing some serious magical study right now."

"Actually, I need to talk to you first. Do you know what they use to restrain a vampire during the Cruciamentum?" Sam asked as he leaned on the counter and fidgeted with a few odds and ends.

Giles frowned at him that was an odd request. "Usually the vampire is restrained with a special set of chains, magically strengthened so as to be unbreakable."

"Good, that'll work on Meg. Do we have any?" Sam asked eager to get started on his plan.

"Yes, I have a set, but they aren't here. They are up over at Xander's. He used them to restrain Spike." Giles and Sam both gave a sympathetic wince for Xander. "They should still be at his apartment."

"Thanks, I'll go there next." Sam stood up and went over to the back room. He still had to check on his little sister and give Elizabeth a report on Dean's progress. Not to mention check on Faith and talk to Buffy about what he wanted to do to Meg.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: A humble thank you to duchess for her idea that I used at the end of this chapter

Faith was sitting on the weight bench waiting for her hand to heal when Buffy walked in. "Hey," she said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Why did he do that? Why was he so nice? What does he want?" came gushing out of Faith's mouth, evidence of her confusion over Dean's actions.

"Oh, that's easy, Faith. He wants you of course. He just wants a little more than your usual, get some and get gone, that's all." Buffy said trying to explain it to Faith in a way that was more in her language than Buffy's normal mangling of English.

"What do you mean he wants more?" Faith asked, worried.

"He's courting you Faith. As in, he thinks he might want to marry you." Buffy held up her hand to stop the objections she could see in her sister slayer's eyes. "I know that's what he's doing because he's doing it the same way his dad does, and John already sort of proposed to me. He screwed up doing it big time, but I guess it does sort of count." She rolled her eyes at the memory of her holding John above her head and his blurting out that he'd bought her a wedding ring.

"Why the hell would he want to do that?" Faith panicked. He wanted to marry her? The psycho slayer who killed people and attracted weird shit?

"Calm down Faith." Buffy patted Faith on the back. "It isn't that bad for a hottie to want to court you. It means lots of dates and not a lot having to make sure they keep their hands to themselves, although I'd guess Dean would be a lot easier to get there if you wanted. John's so much of gentleman I want to scream at times." She said ruefully.

"Not getting any after patrol, huh?" Faith asked, trying to divert attention from herself by being a bit crude. She couldn't put enough into though and Buffy looked at her knowingly. She shrugged; it had been worth the attempt at least. "Come one, B? Why would he want to marry me? He knows I'm a slayer, and I ain't stable. Does he get off on psychos or something?"

"Faith, he's a hunter. Sam is the one who wants a normal life. Dean is the one who loves hunting and says that he'd go psycho if he had to live a normal life. He wants a girlfriend, maybe a wife, who is already in the business and he doesn't have to explain things too. He'll never be anything else, and that doesn't give him a whole lot of options after he's done with chasing skirts. Being pushed off the deep end for a few months isn't going to scare him off because; number one, you brought yourself back and number two, he knows you're working hard on getting yourself back to where you can be a slayer again. He doesn't want someone who is normal. He wants someone who can defend herself and fight with him rather than someone who is just going to keep house while he goes hunting." Buffy said.

"So how big of a jerk is he? I mean, there has got to be something wrong with the guy." Faith said. She was absolutely certain that for Dean to be interested in her, he couldn't be a real nice guy like Xander.

"Faith, did you not hear what I said? This guy loves to hunt things that go bump in the night. That right there puts his sanity in question as far as I'm concerned. He doesn't hunt for the same reason John and Sam do. They hunt because the Jekfoontar clan killed their girls. Dean hunts because he loves it and it helps people. I'm not sure which is more important to him honestly. But hands down the most important thing to Dean is his family. I mean, psycho important. The slightest threat to them that doesn't come from him and he's jumping in there to kill it. I told you what happened when they found out that Glory was after Dawn."

Faith nodded. Ok, so he wasn't a normal guy, but was he a good guy? There was only one truly good guy that she had ever known, and she had tried to kill him. She was so glad that Xander had forgiven her, but there was no way she could ever forget that. "Yea, ok, I can understand that. But how is he on the Xander scale?"

"Well, he's a lot like Xander will end up like I think, if Xander had more of the soldier memories that is. I think his sense of humor needs a lot of reworking because he's the smart ass from hell." Buffy laughed, "Which should put him right up your alley." Faith laughed as well, nodding. She did like smart asses; it was easier when they could keep up with her on that front. "He's also a mother hen from hell, according to Sam. You would not believe the bitch fest I walked in on one day. The worst part is I'm not sure Dean even knows it. So, on a Xander as a ten, I'd give Dean an eight, maybe an eight point five."

"Do I want to know why you are rating your boyfriend's son?" Wesley asked as he walked over to remove the splint from Faith's hand.

"God Wes! It's not like that!" Buffy gave him a disgusted look. "We're talking about how good a boyfriend for a slayer Dean makes; specifically, Faith."

"He grew up a hunter, and he is a decent sort. If you wish to pursue a relationship with him Faith, I will not object. He is aware of everything he needs to be after all."

"Wes, you must be the only person who doesn't realize Dean's been chasing Faith since day one." Buffy said, noticing as she did so that Sam had walked in and was talking to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth and Dawn were both drenched with sweat. They had been going over the same spell for hours, exploring both the how and the why. Elizabeth didn't want to make the mistake of only showing Dawn how to do something, her power was too strong. "You do realize that we are still just skimming the surface, don't you Dawn?"

"There's more?" Dawn asked faintly. She was exhausted and couldn't contemplate even more to learn for just this one spell.

"Yes. We haven't touched on ethics; appropriate uses, where the energy comes from, oh there is a lot more to it. The reason we aren't doing that of course is because you are learning to use this spell in combat, and nothing else. It is a simple spell Dawn, but used in the wrong way it can still bring about disaster. You are going into a very straight forward situation. If you don't go in and help any way you can these demons are going to kill everyone connected with your family. It is a 'kill or be killed' situation, rather than, oh say, the light bulb burned out and I don't want to get up and go change it." Elizabeth said reasonably.

Dawn nodded. "I can see that, even if you can't change a light bulb with a shielding spell." She said wryly.

Elizabeth laughed lightly and stretched as high as she could reach. "I think we need a break. Let's see if there's anything to eat." Dawn agreed wholeheartedly with that plan and tried to stand up. It was hard as she had been sitting so long, she had stiffened up. "Always stretch first before you try to move, Dawn. Otherwise you may end up falling on your face." She smiled to take any sting out of the comment.

The door to the back room opened and Sam walked in. Dawn could see that her big brother was a little agitated, although she didn't know what would make him that way. He had always seemed to her to be the calmer of her two brothers. "Hey, Elizabeth, how is Dawn doing?"

"She's coming along fine, Sam. She has the shielding spell down well enough that I'm going to have someone start throwing things at her so she can get used to impacts against the shield. Then we'll go on to a tracking spell. I'm sorry, but there is no way I'll teach her offensive spells just yet. She learns extremely quickly, but as I don't have time to go over ethics and such, I just won't do it." Elizabeth was very firm on that subject. She knew with the Winchester's past history with these demons, one of them would be asking her to teach Dawn an offensive spell.

"That's not something she's going to need. We'll all be taking weapons with us, so she'll be armed. Is it possible for that spell to be made one way, I mean, can it stop things that are shot at us and let us shoot back?" Sam asked, a plan starting to form in his mind.

Elizabeth smiled, "I already thought of that, and the answer is yes. That is the variation I'm teaching Dawn."

"Good, Dean has managed to get moving while holding that connection thing you were trying to teach him, but he's still very unsteady. Hopefully he'll have that part down within a day or two." Elizabeth stared at him in shock. How could Dean have managed it so quickly? "What else is he going to need to learn? I need to figure out an approximate timeline."

"Once Dean masters moving while holding on to the connection at all times, he only needs to learn to build shields. The shields will keep out any emanations an object gives off unless he lowers them. Do you really think that he's that far along with his progress?" Elizabeth had never had two students who learned so quickly as these two, of course with Dawn that was partially a matter of her being one with an extremely old and powerful source of magical power. She was more reminding the Key part of her how to do things, and simply teaching the girl part of her why it worked. With Dawn's intelligence, that was often a simple matter with such simple spells as this one.

"It's not so much a matter of him learning new skills as it is learning how to use old skills in a new way. Sensei has been teaching Dean and me how to fight for years, and a lot of the focusing of your mind and spirit exercises he taught us is very similar to what you're having Dean do now. It took Dean years to master those skills and I think Sensei was about ready to rip his hair out by the time Dean really started to understand what he was talking about." Sam grinned; he had always caught on quicker to what Sensei was talking about, much to Dean's annoyance.

"Well, in that case, I think Dawn should be ready by the end of the week. The shielding spell and the tracking spell are simple ones, but I want to be sure that she really has them down before sending her off to use them in a fight. I don't thing she'll be learning anything else, but we'll see." She took the drink and towel that Dawn handed her.

"That sounds good. Is there anything the two of you need?"

"Food!" Dawn whined. "I'm starving!" Sam laughed and handed her some money. Dawn grabbed it and slowly stumbled for the phone at the shop's counter.

Sam turned to see Faith, Wes, and Buffy had been watching his conversation with Elizabeth and Dawn. He waved them over and explained his plan to them. A little shuffling of the players and a startling revelation from Elizabeth cemented their plans. The demons wouldn't know what hit them.

Dean and Faith were walking back from one of her appointments with the lady shrink that night when it finally happened. Not the attack from the clan, that was something they were waiting for, no this was something they should have expected what with this being Sunnydale and Faith being a slayer. They were attacked by vampires. There were five of them and it was the biggest pack Dean had seen all summer. Three of them had grabbed Dean. The other two went after Faith. Now, if these vampires had been more than minions, they would have realized who these two were and left them alone; but as they weren't and didn't, they made several fatal errors. The first was that more of them had gone after the much larger Dean, rather than the smaller, but much more deadly Faith. The second was that they stopped to gloat. Faith had frozen in fear when she was tumbled to the ground, but when she saw that Dean had three vampires pinning him down and one was about to take a bite, her instincts and training took over. A swift jab with the high, WOODEN, heel of her right shoe dusted the vampire just starting to hold down her legs. A kick to the head of the other vampire brought him to the ground and Faith rolled to her feet, literally stomping the vampire into dust on her way to rescue Dean. Two of Dean's stakes had fallen to the ground and she picked them up on the run. A series of swift jabs with the stakes left the vampires dust and Faith threw the stakes down as she ripped Dean's clothes in a frantic search for any bite marks. It was only when she saw that Dean only had a few scrapes that she finally collapsed in tears. The entire thing had only taken about ninety seconds. Dean held and rocked her until she wore herself out.

"Are you feeling better?" Dean asked Faith quietly once she had stopped crying. Shakily, Faith nodded her head. "You did good here Faith. I'm gonna have a few bruises but that's it thanks to you."

"I killed them." Faith said, not quite believing she had done so. She had been so scared of going out slaying and making another mistake.

"Yes you did and you saved my ass." Dean said. He didn't let Faith go as he knew she was still in shock. "Thank you."

"I did it." She murmured again. "Whoa, didn't think I could do it."

Dean smiled and got her to her feet. "I knew you could Faith." This was probably the best thing to have happen to Faith, he thought. Get her over the shock quick and fast. She should be ready to eat again by the time they got to Joyce's. Maybe he could get her weight up another half a pound. Deep in plans to stuff Faith, he gently guided her back to the Summers' house where she was living.

The next few days passed both too slowly and too quickly for both sides. The demons watched and planned and waited for the right moment to strike, and the humans did the same. There were a few attacks, but the demons that carried them out must have been desperate for advancement among the clan, because they were easily beaten off. They did however; provide an answer to the question of whether or not blessed ammunition would work as well as holy water. It did.

A/N: The idea from duchess was for Faith to get into slaying before she realized it and through her crisis that way. Thank you again, duchess!


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Credit goes to Immortalwizardelffan for the idea of using Angel's mansion. It will be in increasing use during the next story.

Sam was nervous as he walked down the street. It was time to spring the trap that would set off their plans for the Jekfoontar clan. He knew Meg was still following him. He only hoped that he was irresistible bait for her as he seemed to be alone.

Meg grabbed Sam by the back of the jacket and knocked him cold. He was so stupid to have left the safety of his family and go walking down the street where she could get at him. This was going to be such fun, she gloated as she bent to pick him up. She was shocked as a length of chain wrapped itself around her and dragged her away from Sam. Each end was held by a slayer and they dragged her out of the alley where she had ambushed Sam and out into the street. They made no attempt to disguise what they were doing as they loaded her into John's truck. It wasn't the first time one of the Winchesters had played bait for a trap but John and Dean were more nervous than usual, considering who they were dealing with. So, in their usual fashion, they'd over compensated with overwhelming force. All three male Winchesters, both Slayers, both Watchers, Spike and Xander all had a part in the trap. It wasn't until Dean had a pistol loaded with blessed bullets to Meg's head, and the Slayers and Watchers had tied her down with the chains made to hold a vampire that John started to relax. He wouldn't be totally at ease until the entire operation was over, but the initial steps were proceeding according to plan, up to and including the clan witnesses to Meg's capture. Sam was loaded into Xander's car by Spike and Xander. They tried to make a very obvious convoy up to the mansion that Angel had said that they could use any time they wished. He watched in his rearview mirror as two of the clan witnesses took off towards the area where they had determined the clan was gathering. The other witness, one that John had a feeling was Meg's brother or something, the other clan heir at any rate, was following them. Good, he thought, take the nice bait. We're taking her off to torture her for information and you need to attack us now, you dipshit. He grinned as he saw the angry look on the demon's face before Xander's car cut off his view. That was just what they needed.

As they pulled their vehicles into the mansions' garage, Tara set the final ward. The wards were very carefully constructed to look like they were weak and unrefined, as though they were put together by a novice. Instead they would funnel any attack into a single entry, giving the defenders a single point to defend, and hopefully drawing out the length of the attack. As they dragged Meg spitting and screeching into the large entry room of the mansion, they saw that Elizabeth had all of the preparations for the spell they would use to travel to the clan's stronghold ready. Faith and Buffy silently chained Meg to the wall, ironically in the same place that Angel had once pretended to chain up Buffy. John and Dean carried Sam in and placed him on the couch. All was now set for the final distraction.

"Is he ok?" Dawn asked as she watched her dad and brother place Sam gently on the couch.

"Oh, yeah, Dawn Patrol, don't you worry none. Sammy's got a head like a rock. That bitch didn't do any permanent damage." Dean tried to reassure her. Dawn's eyes blazed as she looked at Meg.

"Oh spare me little girl." Meg taunted. "You don't look like you'd even make a decent pet, so don't try to pull off looking threatening. You're just too sweet to pull that off."

Dawn smiled her ear to ear grin, the one that John and a few of the others knew that she had inherited from her mother. And like Buffy, Dawn was at her most dangerous when she smiled. "Oh shit!" John breathed. Unlike the others he knew what that look meant and hoped that no one had given her any weapons yet. Not that he really was worried about the demon; it was just that he hated how bouncy Dawn got after killing something.

"Dad?" Dean asked, wondering what he was worried about, then he saw Dawn pull out the shotgun he and John had been drilling Dawn with for the past few days. He didn't know why his dad was worried, it wasn't like she could kill the bitch, and any damage she did was fine with him. Dawn walked over to Meg and looked her right in the face as she pulled the trigger, putting two shotgun shells of consecrated iron buckshot right into her knees, shattering the kneecaps and embedding the iron right into the joints. Then she bounced right over to her dad still grinning.

"NO!" John said sternly. "You may not have sugar!" Dawn pouted and turned to Buffy, who was starting to catch on. Dawn was her daughter, and she was also physically fourteen, almost fifteen. That was very close to the age when potential slayers became slayers. Dawn must have inherited more than just a little better than average hand to eye coordination from her.

"You can have some pizza Dawn. But your dad's right, sugar is not what you need right now. What you need is high energy foods, like burgers or fried stuff, not empty calories from sugar." Buffy took the shotgun away from Dawn and sent her off to where they had set up a food buffet on the other side of the room. "She likes to kill stuff doesn't she?" She asked John.

He nodded. "When she chopped the heads off those hellhounds she told me we needed marshmallows to go with the bonfire we had to burn the carcasses."

"It looks like she inherited some of my slayer appetites. Hopefully she won't get the entire package." Buffy said glumly.

"The other child did not, although he was a warrior of very high prowess. Most likely Dawn, like him, has inherited superior hand to eye coordination, a natural aptitude for weaponry, a love for defeating evil, and increased physical stamina." Giles offered, watching Dawn closely.

Sam had woken up in time to hear this discussion. "It'll be different for her because she's a girl." He said, rubbing the spot where Meg had hit him. He stood up and stretched. Dawn was eating something that Joyce had made for her and John and Buffy were talking quietly about the newest revelation about their daughter. Dean had already checked him out so he was busy with Faith, Spike and Xander getting their weapons ready. Willow, Tara, and Elizabeth were fiddling with their magical supplies. Giles and Wesley were deep in discussion, probably also about Dawn. It was the perfect time to confront Meg.

Meg watched as he calmly walked over to her. "You are so pathetic, Sam. I don't know why you are supposed to be such a warrior. You can't even hunt on your own. I can't believe you killed a monster in the closet as a child." She said not bothering to lower her voice.

"Well now, why would that surprise you?" Dean asked as he slung his arm around his brother. "Sam may not be all that enthusiastic, but that doesn't mean he's incompetent."

"His first kill," she scoffed, "As if it were possible for a child to defeat one of them."

By this time the conversation, such as it was, had garnered everyone's attention. "Oh, you think that Sam couldn't shoot a gun when he was a kid." Dean said with a grin. "I remember that one." He turned to Sam, who had made a disgusted face. "I still say that was a great shot."

"You did good Sammy." John said. He'd been very proud that his son had been able to kill the closet monster that was after him.

"Dad, you gave me a .45 when I was nine and told me to kill whatever came out of the closet." Sam tried to get his father to realize why that bothered him.

"Well, it wasn't like I didn't try other options first." John said exasperated, hands on his hips.

"You did?" Sam asked. All he remembered was being scared of the monster and the night his father had given him the gun.

"Dean slept in your bed for a week, Sammy, and I spent the nights in a chair right outside the door. The only reason I gave you the gun was because the closet monster wouldn't go for Dean, he was too old at thirteen. It was just too bad he'd discovered girls by then or he could have killed it. Dean and I both spent that night right outside the door waiting. If you hadn't been able to shoot the damned thing we'd have been right there to do it for you." John shook his head surprised that Sam hadn't remembered that they'd tried to do all they could. "Dean had his ear glued to the door for hours and was opening the door before you took the shot." What he didn't say was that he'd had his ear to the door as well and that the only reason Dean had gotten to the door knob first was that he was shorter than John.

"I guess I was too scared to remember." Sam admitted, the memory returning now that he was reminded. "All I could remember about that night was holding the gun and Dean taking it away from me before I could drop it."

"The first time is always the hardest." John said, patting Sam on the shoulder.

"Oh, please, this is making me sick!" Meg said, doing her best keep her mind off the pain in her legs. "If you really were all that great a hunter you'd have been able to save your girlfriend and your child." She spat the words into Sam's face. As Sam fell back in shock, Dean lunged at Meg, holding one hand to her face and placing the other on the chains that held her to the wall. "Gonna have some fun sweetie?" Meg taunted. Then he set his power free. Dean pulled all of the torment felt by all who had worn the chains and pushed it into Meg's mind.

"Yeah, I am. Sam wasn't home when your clan came you bitch." He said as she screamed. There was no remorse in him at all for his actions; not after what she had just done to his baby brother. The only thing he regretted was that he couldn't make it last longer. Sam pushed him aside and held up a knife so that Meg could see it. Too late she saw what Sam's natural good nature had hidden from her, the hatred and pain driven rage that was her clan's gift to him. Held frozen by her miscalculation, she stared into his eyes as he cut her across the belly, just as Mary and Jessica had been. She screamed from the pain; the knife had been blessed, and so had the salt that Sam rubbed into the wound. He stepped back and let his father take his place in front of her.

"You know you really shouldn't have pissed off my boys. You might have made it through to your death without us torturing you. Well, no that isn't true, we were going to torture you, but we wouldn't have made it this bad." He said and he poured gasoline all over her. Lighting a match he set her on fire and walked away, while the Scoobies watched with horrified eyes.

"Uh, John, was that really necessary?" Buffy asked quietly. She normally didn't go in for torturing demons just for saying something rude.

It was Sam who answered her. "Buffy, Jessica couldn't have been more than a few weeks along at most. I didn't even know she was pregnant." The new knowledge only made the pain worse. Dean or Deana, he thought had deserved to live just as much as his or her mother.

With that both of the Slayers turned back to Meg, "Damn, you didn't leave anything for us to do!" was Faith's disgusted comment. Buffy just glared at the burning demon.

Dean patted Faith on the shoulder. "Don't worry, you have something to do. You need to keep these bastards off our backs while we go and take out their clan link."

"You will have no worries on that matter." Wesley said confidently. Everyone else nodded as well. Just then the first strike occurred against Tara's shields.

"It's time!" She said and she hurriedly gathered up her supplies. Quickly John, Buffy, Dean, Sam, and Dawn all gathered in a small huddle in the midst of an elaborate diagram Elizabeth had drawn on the floor. Dawn held out her hand and Tara made a small cut on her finger. She collected five drops of blood from Dawn's finger, one for each of the team that was being sent to Cleveland and the Jekfoontar clan's stronghold. Then while the fighters went to their places to make their stand, Elizabeth, Willow, and Tara chanted the spell that was powered by Dawn's blood and the power of the Key. There was a swirling of colors and a tearing sound as the Key tore a hole in the fabric of the very air and they disappeared.

Only to reappear in the clan's throne room. "You're up Dawn." John said as he took his first look around. All four of them were already standing in a protective circle around Dawn, so she immediately dropped to the floor. Elizabeth had drilled what she had to do next so often that it was now as simple as breathing. First she touched the Key and drew out a tiny, tiny, tiny portion and drew it into her hands. Then she whispered the tracking spell. The ball of light shot forward and Sam grabbed her up as they started to follow. With Dawn at the center, they jogged as silently as they could down the hall and through a door that led to a staircase. John didn't know whether or not he hoped they would meet up with any of the clan members. He wanted to kill the one who had killed the members of his family, but at the same time he didn't want to risk his family to a bunch of demons who couldn't yet be killed when they were so close to destroying them. The choice was taken out of his hands at the bottom of the staircase.

Buffy stopped them with an upraised hand at the door at the bottom. "There's a guard waiting outside the door." She whispered into John's ear.

"Grab the guard when I open the door." He whispered back. She nodded and within seconds had the guard on the inside of the door and on the floor with his throat ripped out. Dawn stood watch at the door while the others chopped up the demon and put the pieces in the plastic bags that they had brought with them. Then they followed the light out into the basement level of the mansion. It was decorated like an ancient castle dungeon, with torches and the occasional instrument of torture. At one end of the basement stood two guards in front of a large door.

"Indiana Jones, I presume?" Buffy asked sarcastically. Dawn tried her best not to giggle, while Dean gave Buffy a large smirk. The theme was a bit much.

"Buffy, you take the one on the right. I'll take the one on the left. Sam, you and Dawn guard Dean and get him in there. Dean, once you're in there, destroy that damn thing as quick as you can. And pray to God it works."

"Amen." They all whispered. Buffy was pleased that the demon John had given her was the bigger of the two. While he was shooting the somewhat littler demon, she was beating the other one as hard as she could. She had needed something to beat on ever since she had heard about Sam's baby being deliberately murdered.

With the guards occupied; Dawn, Dean and Sam slipped into the treasure vault. There was a vast array of treasure from all over the world. "Damn! I hoped that it would be a little more obvious." Dean swore. "Dawn, you take the left, Sam you take the right, if either of you find a statue of any kind bring it to me." Dean started down the middle, skimming his hands over everything in reach. He had his shields lowered just enough to sense whether or not something was seriously magical or not. Dawn and Sam had each brought three statues to Dean before he found it. It was such a little thing, it surprised him. It was a small statuette about ten inches tall and that was about the only thing Dean could have told anyone about it. It seemed to be moving, shifting its surface, but either it was doing it too fast or slow for the eye to see or it was just an illusion created by the magic he could feel pouring off of it. "How the hell do I break this thing?" He asked himself picking it up, but as soon as he touched it, the statuette began to melt and break into smaller and smaller pieces. "OH GROSS!" He yelled trying to fling the oozing remains off of his hands.

"Dean, did you find it?" Dawn yelled.

"Yeah, I did and it's goop now!" He yelled back trying to wipe his hands off on the treasure around him. Just then the door to the vault opened up and John came in carrying Buffy. Dean and Sam went to the door to guard it, thinking that Buffy had been hurt, while Dawn went directly to her parents. When Dawn put her hand on her mother's back, Buffy lifted her head out from John's neck.

"Ewww, Ewww, Ewww! That's not supposed to happen unless you're cutting them up! That is sooo gross!" Buffy went back to clinging to John.

John chuckled at Dawn's expression. "They fell apart, Dawn. Boys, one of you hold Dawn and the other call for our pick up." Dean and Sam walked back over to where John and Dawn were standing, an utterly disgusted look on both of their faces. Sam picked up Dawn and held her as Dean made the phone call. "I guess now we know why they said that statue held the clan together." John said with a smirk

"DAD!" came from three different voices. Buffy just smacked John on the shoulder for the pun.


	19. Chapter 19

When the Winchester family reappeared in Angel's mansion, they were met with a group who, down to the last person, wore absolutely disgusted faces. "I take it they all fell apart too," was John's comment.

"Yeah, but this one's still hanging on." Faith said pointing to the mess at her feet. "He was the big honcho I guess, since he was the one hollering orders."

John put Buffy down and walked over to where the demon that had killed Mary and Jessica lay almost intact in a puddle of blood and other fluids. "You know if you hadn't started this war by killing Mary, you wouldn't be here now. We Winchesters are a deadly bunch, just like the rifle. When you killed Mary, you declared war on us and we declared war right back. You lose." He had waited almost twenty three years to say that, and the relief he felt about being able to say it was incredible. He was glad the demon had lived long enough to hear him say it.

He turned his back on the demon and faced the others, "Let's go get cleaned up." Smiles and words of agreement came from all sides as he put his arm around Buffy's shoulders and led his family out to their vehicles.

Several hours later they were all gathered around the Summers' dining room table, having been patched up and cleaned off. Without the distraction of impending doom, Buffy and Faith finally noticed John and Dean's feeding competition. "That's it! I've had enough!" Declared Faith; throwing down her napkin, she turned and tackled Dean to the floor. As they were both sitting in chairs at the time because it was a proper sit down celebration dinner, it wasn't the most comfortable thing she could have done. "No more or I'll," she whispered something in his ear.

"Is that supposed to make me stop? Because if it is, I got to tell you all that does is encourage me." Dean said as he smiled up at her. Faith smiled and dragged him to his feet. As she hauled him away from the table, (and from there up the stairs to her room) he snagged a serving bowl of chocolate pudding.

Xander held his hand out to Willow who sighed and both she and Tara passed him five dollar bills. "Couldn't she have waited another week?" Willow mock whined. That set off a chorus of laughter around the table as Sam righted Dean's chair.

"Speaking of proposals," Giles said and he got up and walked over to Joyce. "I wanted to wait until the doctors had cleared you as your life is stressful enough as it is. Joyce, will you marry me?"

"YES!" Joyce cried and threw her arms around him, prompting a round of cheers and a few knowing looks at John. He did his best to ignore them and made it a point to congratulate both Joyce and Giles. As he sat there looking around at his new family and reveling in the release of the burden he had carried for so long, John couldn't help remembering the night that had brought him to this point. At the time all he could think about was destroying whatever had killed Mary and preventing it from harming his small children. He could never have imagined that his quest would bring him here. He had a new girlfriend that he had a daughter with, and they still hadn't done more than cuddle and kiss yet! His oldest son had grown into a hunter of great skill and was finally settling down into his own family. His youngest son had experienced a series of terrible blows, but was now able to go on to become a doctor of all things! He smirked as he recalled Mary telling him that her parents had wanted her to bring a doctor into the family. Maybe he should call them up and tell them. Dawn was a gift that he would have sworn would never happen. The extended family he now found himself a part of was varied and from the outside, strange beyond belief but it suited him like he'd never thought possible. He had found more than his revenge and the protection that he had sought out starting that terrible night; he had finally found his home.


End file.
